I have had bags of clothes sitting in my apartment waiting for me to donate them for something like a year. Maybe longer. And last week, I finally donated them.

It was one of those unfortunate tasks that was neither important nor urgent but that would take more than a few minutes.  So I just sort of stopped seeing the bags of clothes being slowly shredded by my cats.  When I did occasionally notice them, it was never a good time to dive into such a big project (?) so I left them for “later.”

Lessons learned:

• After “later” feels great!
• I had to re-bag the clothes, add additional items to be donated, load my car, figure out where to take them, and physically donate.  It all took about 80 minutes. Not bad at all.
• The Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota has done a great job with their website.  I was especially impressed that they responded directly to a recent news story about clothing donations right in their clothing donations section – way to anticipate my question and answer it!
• My apartment looks a lot bigger and I can now see my closet floor.  If I’d taken a moment to weigh the relative annoyance of 80 minutes of donating vs. a year with more clutter, I would have decluttered a year ago.

The factor that started me tackling this silly little project with its surprisingly large impact on my living space was a conversation that became a plan.  Those things are powerful.