GQ Editor Chris Gayomoli just broke down the best way to clean out any and all of the unwanted clothes in your closet. But for those of us who can't imagine spending a Saturday surrounded by trash bags on our bedroom floor while 6 Miller High Lives deep, there's an easier way: By starting the purge with shoes. There's certainly some merit to, as Chris noted, asking yourself the question, "Do I really love this thing," but if you're anything like me, you're a little bit delusional about your love for all of your sneakers. (Note: Just because the cute barista maybe winked at you one time while wearing them doesn't make them special.) Thus, if you mean serious business about this, tossing sneakers should be calculated, but emotionless. In the words of Nike, "Just [Fucking] Do It."
This isn't a call to be reckless and start shoveling shoes into an incinerator. Tossing a pair of $500 Italian-made tennis shoes is unwise, but you'll survive without the neon-colored versions that cost 85 bucks and have only been worn once since 2009. Ultimately, you want to go with your gut feeling. Don't ruminate on any one pair longer than 30 seconds, and the whole process shouldn't take more than 30 minutes. (Set a timer if you have to.) If you find yourself staring at a pair for an hour, making "pros" and "cons" spreadsheets and imagining scenarios in which they might be the "perfect" match for garments X, Y, and Z, then you are better off without them taking up space in your closet, and especially in your life.
The best part: once the un-needed pairs are gone, you'll realize how much easier it is to get dressed. Options are great, but too many choices can be intimidating, or worse, paralyzing. Choosing between the white pair of basketball sneakers and the eggshell pair of basketball sneakers may have once seemed like a life-altering decision, but the second the weakest link is gone, you'll see that there was always a clear winner. Getting dressed isn't about having a department store at your disposal. It's about having a well-curated and, more importantly, well-organized collection of gear that makes putting on clothes easy.
Once you've determined which shoes are part of the cleanse, then you can get into the details. Are they beat to shit? Then they've lived a good life and should be put in the garbage. Are they a rare artifact of sneaker lore? See if someone on eBay will shell out some cash for them. But if they're just some good shoes without too much wear, then consider giving them to a person who actually needs them, through somewhere like The Salvation Army or Soles 4 Souls. Just don't use the tax break to buy more shoes you're never going to wear.
