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The overwhelming feeling of decluttering shoes
You were looking for the shoes that you want to wear today, but you don’t know where it is. You bought new shoes but found out that you have similar ones at home (you have entirely forgotten about the shoes). Your family owns many shoes, and there isn’t enough space for all the shoes. You opened the closet and it stunk.
These are the times that you feel like we have to get rid of some of the shoes. So, you started decluttering shoes. However, eventually, you were tired or distracted, or overwhelmed by the number of shoes or the process itself. Your family did not support it.
If you have such an experience, you are not the only one. Fortunately, I have a suggestion: why don’t you get rid of just one pair? It is simple, and you would feel better and a little bit of accomplishment. Plus, you may be able to dispose of shoes from other family members.
Basic of decluttering shoes:
There are a lot of articles available about “how-to” declutter shoes. Most of them recommend ;
1. Take out all of the shoes you have.
Yes, “all” of them. If you have shoes in the boxes in the garage, on the top of the shelf, or in the back of the closet, take them out. You have to see what you have.
2: Separate the shoes by category and evaluate which ones you want to keep.
You can separate the shoes by, for example, work shoes, casual shoes, seasonal shoes, and occasional shoes, or, pumps, boots, sneakers, flip-flops, and flats. But how do you evaluate which ones I want to keep? There are a lot of articles about how to decide which shoe you want to keep.
A simple one is an idea from Kondo Marie, who is the author of NY Time’s Best-selling book “life-changing magic of tidying up“: “When the shoes do not spark a joy at the moment, you say bye-bye to them”.
Otherwise, choose which one to keep based on the criteria below:
- The condition of your shoes
- Fit
- Fashion
- Lifestyle
- 12 months rule
3: Get rid of the ones you don’t want to keep.
Rather than dumping the shoes in the garbage bin, you should donate the shoes. According to the article “what does goodwill do with your clothes”, you should never throw away shoes even if you think it is too dirty to donate. You can bring them to the nearby donation center or the donation box and then they will sort them out and decide if the shoes can be sold at reselling shop or outlet. Otherwise, they can sell the recycling organization. Or, according to the Planataid Organization, the donated shoes go to the poorer counties, where people can sell the shoes. Alternatively, Collaborating with Shoes2soles, DSW accepts gently used or new shows to donate (they will give you points) and Zappos provides a free pre-paid label for donation. You can find local drop-off locations on the Shoes4soeles website too.
Of course, if you have like-new or new brand shoes, you can sell it online or sell it to the consignment store to monetize them.
4: Organize the shoes.
Once you decide on the shoes you keep, it is time to put them back on the shoe rack. But before putting them back into the closet, box or cabinets, think about if there is a better way to organize shoes.
Get rid of one pair of shoes:
The problem for lots of us is that we can’t decide whether we should keep the specific shoe or not. So you may stop at the evaluating stage. You know you have to be merciless, but I see people’s tendency to keep the stuff when you can’t decide whether to keep it or not. Eventually, you get bored or distracted, and you won’t even finish checking all of them. You will feel overwhelmed by the number of shoes you have or tired of decision-making. Then you bring them back to the box or shoe rack (or worse, you leave them)
This is why I suggest getting rid of one pair of shoes! When you look inside the shoe cabinet, or you open a few shoe boxes, you will find the shoes you have forgotten to have or the ones you have not worn in a while. If you can’t decide whether you should throw them away or keep, go out with the shoes on for the whole day rather than just trying them on at home. You may like it or not, or the shoes fit well or not. It would be an easier decision.
We can’t call this a “decluttering” shoe collection, but if you keep doing this when you feel like getting rid of shoes, you may end up reducing many pairs of shoes.
Also, I like the idea that “getting rid of one pair of shoes when you buy a new pair. ” This prevents growing the shoe collections.
Plus: other family members
Do you want to throw away your family member’s shoes too? Don’t do it without permission (except for little kids). Marie Kondo even mentioned that she had thrown away her family’s belongings, and they hated it. She says that we should demonstrate the action by ourselves, and family member follows.
If you want to encourage other members to do the same, you could say that “we have so many shoes in the closet. How about each of us throws away one pair of shoes?”. You would receive less backlash than forcing them to take out all shoes and decide the shoes to be thrown away.
