The 3 Decluttering Boxes

We’re drawing closer to Chinese New Year, and I’ve been doing some early spring cleaning with some hardcore decluttering this year.

Now, I love me some decluttering, but how to go about doing it? After years of making both leanness and regret, I’ve found a quick and easy way is to divide your stuff into 3 boxes, and then decide how hardcore you want to get.

(These don’t have to be actual physical boxes, but boxes you categorize your stuff into in your mind.)

The 3 Boxes of Decluttering

The Keep Box

This is easy. The stuff that you absolutely know you want to keep goes into the Keep Box. This includes things like the clothes you always wear, the books you love and the stuff you use everyday that keeps you happy and healthy.

The Throw Box

Stuff that is definitely going out goes into the Throw Box. This includes stuff that don’t fit your present life anymore and have no place in the vision of your future. If you haven’t used or seen it in a while, chances are that it’s good to go.

The Maybe Box

The Maybe Box is where stuff you’re not sure whether you want to keep goes into. When you’re sorting out your stuff, don’t stop your momentum with indecision. If you don’t know whether to keep or throw something, put it in the Maybe Box and decide later.

Deciding Threshold – How Hardcore are You?

The way to sort the Maybe Box is to decide how hardcore you want to go.

Nuclear Declutter

Everything in the Maybe Box goes. If you had to wonder about keeping something, you don’t really need it.

Tactical Declutter

Sort it out. Some of the stuff you’ll keep, and some of the stuff you’ll throw. Make the best decision you can.

Delay Declutter

Not sure? Seal the stuff you’re not sure about, stow it away somewhere and set a deadline for yourself. If say, after six months you don’t miss the things inside, they’re clear to go.

Wimp-Out Declutter

You throw everything in the Maybe Box into the Keep Box and rationalize to yourself that yes, you do need those old floppy disks after all.

Keep it Clean, Encourage the Vision

In your decluttering adventures, take care not to throw the baby out with the dishwater. It’s not throwing things out for the sake of throwing things out, it’s about keeping your environment true to the direction you want your life to be going. Quote Peter Walsh, author of It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, from an interview with Unclutterer;

It’s not about the stuff – it’s about the life you wish to live…It’s important to remember that what you own and where and how you live is a reflection of the person you are. A clutter-free, organized life is about living in a way that helps create your best possible life – happy, stress-free, creative, motivated and enriching. Happiness can’t be found in the quantity of stuff we own, it’s in the quality of relationships that we form. What we own should foster that life, not be a hurdle to it.

Related Posts

1. The Digital Clutter
2. Minimalism as a Lifestyle