Brian Lairer on WNYC and during this membership drive, we'll be doing a series of short segments at the end of the show that we're calling spring cleaning.

It's about organizing your stuff and your life

in six different ways on six different days. First up for day one, organizing your clothes. For a lot of

people, spring cleaning does begin in the closet, and it can feel like a kind of bottomless task,

right? There's so much to go through and so many decisions to make. And at the end of it,

you're sometimes left with heaping trash bags of clothing labeled, donate, sell, and toss that

you're not really sure what to do with. So today our goal is to help you get them out of your house

once and for all into the best possible places. Our guest is Caitlin Wells, reporter at the New York Times product review website

Wirecutter, and she's joining us now for the last few minutes here to offer some insight

about how to responsibly and satisfyingly purge your closet. Hey, Caitlin, welcome to WNYC.

Hi, Brian. Thank you for having me. So is there a best way to go through your clothes as you

pull them out of your closets and drawers? There is definitely a best way to go about this. As you said,

it can get really overwhelming when you have just piles and piles of stuff. But the best solution

is basically empty out your closet, sort through it all by type,

and make sure the items are clean and free of stains and tears. If you don't want it,

nobody else does either. So you only want to compile things that are clean and easy to

and then divide it by type, jacket, you know, shirts, pants, and the like.

So it's easier for consignment shops and third-party organizations to sort through them for the donation.

Right. You said consignment shop or third-party organizations.

Are those donation bins that we see in various places?

Are they for real?

Or do you have advice at Wirecutter about the best places or ways to donate close?

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