Our week 7 task in the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge could be the most challenging one of all for me. This week, we continue our closet purge with t-shirts and sweatshirts.

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I am a huge fan of live music. I love all kinds of music, but I’m especially obsessed with classic rock. I love to attend concerts and I’ve amassed quite a collection of rock and roll t-shirts over the years. Some women are obsessed with shoes. For me, it’s band and concert t-shirts.

This post was originally published in February 2021 and republished in February 2024.

Here are some of my favourites. This is not going to be an easy task.

What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?

In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.

• 52-Week Decluttering Challenge
• Week 1 – Easy Decluttering Checklist

You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.

Are you ready for week 7? Let’s get decluttering!

Week 7 – Closet purge – T-shirts and sweatshirts

As in previous weeks, I started by gathering all my t-shirts and sweatshirts and laying them out on my bed.

There are a lot of them. I started out with a grand total of 70 items: 10 sweatshirts, 9 long-sleeved t-shirts, 31 casual t-shirts, 5 tank tops and 15 dressier t-shirts that I wear with skirts or dress pants.

Let’s keep in touch! Join my mailing list and I’ll email you when I add a new post.

What I got rid of

As I’ve done with every decluttering exercise, I picked each item up and savoured the memories. When the exercise was done, I had set aside 12 items to get rid of: 3 sweatshirts, 5 casual t-shirts, 2 tank tops and 2 dressier t-shirts.

So, you might be asking if I really need the 39 t-shirts I kept. To be honest, probably not. Does anyone really need that many t-shirts?

But I kept them because they all fit, and I wear every single one of them. To apply Marie Kondo’s philosophy, they definitely bring me joy. Every one of those concert t-shirts brings back great memories and I’m proud to wear them. I don’t feel any guilt about keeping them.

This week’s decluttering and organizing tips

From a volume perspective, this wasn’t my most successful week of decluttering. While I don’t have a lot of tips to share, I do have some thoughts.

• I had a couple of t-shirts that I received as giveaways. I’ll keep them for workout clothes to replace some worn-out t-shirts. Who needs to spend money on fancy workout gear anyway? I will think twice before accepting any more giveaways in the future, though.
• A few years ago, I heard a really cool idea. The mother of one of my daughter’s friends made a quilt out of all of her high school spirit wear t-shirts. When I’m ready, I might look into that for my concert t-shirts. It’s a neat way to turn those memories into something useful. That would mean I’d need to learn how to quilt, though. For now, I’ll just keep wearing them. Maybe quilting will be a retirement project.
• While a true minimalist might scoff at my 39 t-shirts, this exercise is an important reminder that you need to know your goals before starting any decluttering exercise. My goal is not to reduce a certain percentage of my belongings or create a capsule wardrobe with a specific number of pieces. For me, it’s about simplifying and getting rid of items I no longer want, like, need or use.

2024 Update

It has been three years so I’m rebooting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to see how much I can get rid of in 2024.

Not surprisingly, I’m still not ready to say goodbye to my beloved concert t-shirts, and I’ve added a few more since my first round of the decluttering challenge in 2021. After carefully sorting through my collection, I set aside 5 items to get rid of.

So while I’m keeping the concert t-shirts I already have, I think I need to stop adding to the problem and challenge myself to NOT buy any more concert t-shirts in the future. Wish me luck!

So that’s week 7 done. Next week, we’ll continue our closet purge with cardigans, blazers and suits.

If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!

When it comes to clothing and accessories, what’s your obsession? Tell us below.