Want to know what my favorite beginning-of-the-year activity is?  It’s called “cleanup”.

No, it’s not the song “Cleanup” we used to sing as a kid—you know that song?  Well if you don’t know that song I will of course stick a YouTube video in with the clean up song so you can listen to it as you clean up your life.

But seriously, here’s what I want you to do: I want all of you to head to your closet today and look at all of your clothes.  I want you to put them all on, and I want you to only keep the clothes that look the best on you.  If you haven’t worn it in two years, I guarantee you, you’re probably never going to where it again.  Don’t think about how much money you spent on it. Don’t think about how you didn’t wear it enough. Don’t think about that it may come back in style again.

It’s not an investment. Clothing is not a monetary investment; it’s an investment in making you feel good.  Look at all your clothes, take the clothes that you don’t want and either donate them or do as I do and give them to your friends. They may want to wear some of the stuff.  Pass it along.

Here’s a great idea for all of you: put an e-mail out to all your friends and say you’re going to have a “clothing swap party”.  Everybody’s got to bring a bag of clothes, and every body has to bring a member of the opposite sex.  And that way then, you put all the clothes on the floor and everybody tries them on for each other.

It can get real personal very, very quickly, and it could be a lot of fun.  You can get opinions on the way things look on you and how they fit.  I’ve done these clothing swap parties in the past, and—let me tell you something—people will swap more than just clothes!

So have a clothing swap party.  And by doing a clothing swap party, you’re going to have an absolute blast.  As a matter of fact, I think I’m going to go do this right now. I think I’m going to go call a couple of friends up, and then I’m going to throw some stuff on the floor, and allow them to brawl for my leftovers.

I told you I would!