Declutter By Packing Up All Your Stuff, Only Unpack What You Need

How much of the stuff in your house do you really need? How much could you afford to get rid of if you really wanted to? If you want to find out, pack up everything you own. Treat it like you’re moving. Then, only unpack what you need. See what’s still in those boxes in a month.

Photo by rick.

As the aptly-titled minimalism blog The Minimalists points out, you probably have a bunch of junk in your home. This stuff doesn’t really add value in your life, but you still have to take care of it. If you want to find out which stuff you need and which crap is crap, pack it all up and only unpack it as you need it:

We decided to pack all my belongings as if I were moving. And then I would unpack only the items I needed over the next three weeks… After three weeks, 80% of my stuff was still in those boxes. Just sitting there. Unaccessed. I looked at those boxes and couldn’t even remember what was in most of them. All those things that were supposed to make me happy weren’t doing their job. So I donated and sold all of it.

What you do with the remainder is up to you. You can donate the stuff you don’t need, sell it, or just use all those piled up boxes as a reminder of what you really need to get by. It’s up to you. However, the exercise can put into perspective what you really “need.” The next time you move to a new home, for example, if you know you can get a smaller space, you won’t be wasting so much money on that unused room.

Packing Party: Unpack a Simpler Life [The Minimalists via Rockstar Finance]