Decluttering Tips for Minimalists Dealing with FOMO
Decluttering Tips for Minimalists Dealing with FOMO
I want to minimize, but I’m scared I’ll get rid of something I’ll end up needing later. What decluttering tips do you have for me?
This question recently appeared in my inbox and the truth is, it’s a question I hear often.
Purging perfectly good stuff goes directly against our nature; indeed, humans are wired to collect things. Back when resources were scarce (read: The Stone Age), gathering and storing food ensured survival.
The problem is this: We’ve taken that hard-wired process – to collect things, to hoard things – and have applied it to nearly every whimsical item we own as though our collecting, our hoarding, is both completely normal and necessary.
Take, for example, that set of margarita glasses you registered for before your wedding. You had high hopes to utilize them in all their fanciful glory on weekends with friends.
But the sad truth is you grew older and perhaps had children and now you’re in bed by 9:30pm on Fridays.
So those margarita glasses you adore? They only see the light of day on Cinco de Mayo and, some years, not even then.
But what if you need them one day? If you donate them, will you regret it later?
Consider also that third set of sheets you keep for the sole Queen-sized bed in your home. Although you haven’t unfurled those sheets in years, you worry that – one day – you’ll need that third set for all the people that may suddenly decide to sleep over at once.
(Perhaps they’ll spend the night after that raging margarita party you may or may not throw.)
You balk at the thought of discarding something in perfectly decent condition. What would your mother say, if she knew?
It’s FOMO (Fear-of-Missing-Out) with regard to your stuff.
It’s understandable – it’s human nature, even – and we all experience the gut-wrenching emotion because it’s central to all of us.
But there’s a very simple solution to this very common problem, and it’s this: The Quarantine Box.
Decluttering Tips Here: Get yourself a quarantine box
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1. The clutter in your home creates anxiety.
2. When you go looking for something it takes much longer to find it than it should.
3. You feel suffocated by the sheer magnitude of stuff you own.
4. You are overwhelmed by the amount of stuff you are responsible for taking care of.
5. You are out of space.
The Quarantine Box is a box (in my house, it’s repurposed Amazon packaging) that holds those things you are not quite sure whether you’ll regret disposing. It is a staple in your home, but it remains well out-of-sight. Everyone who resides in your home knows the essential function of the Quarantine Box and uses it consistently.
What is a Quarantine Box not?
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1. It’s not fancy.
2. It’s not yet another place to store clutter.
3. It’s not a dust collector.
A Quarantine Box is quite simple in both design and function, so there’s no need to overthink it.
It is just a box that holds the stuff you are reluctant to dispose. If you haven’t used the box’s contents in a pre-determined amount of time (in my house, that time period is six months, but up to one year is reasonable), make plans to donate or repurpose whatever’s inside.
It’s as simple as that.
