Seven categories that will change how you look at everything in your house
When we decided to downsize from our 3,300 square foot home, where we raised our kids and had Grandma Linda living with us - to something significantly smaller and closer to the friends and family we love, I knew I had a big job ahead of me.
My goal was to get rid of 90% of our regular stuff and at least 50% of my craft and holiday things. That sounds like a lot because it is A LOT. And the thing that made it actually doable was learning to classify what I was looking at before I decided what to do with it.
Three brilliant women taught me how to think about this: Cas from the Clutterbug, Dana K. White from A Slob Comes Clean, and April from the Spacemaker Method. Between the three of them I had a framework that made the whole process make sense. Here is what I learned...
Category 1: Trash-Trash
Dana K. White is always talking about looking for actual trash in your home and the first time I heard it I thought - that is not me. I don't have random trash laying around.
And then I looked around.
That box. Trash. That empty bag sitting in a kitchen drawer. Trash. Random packaging that never made it to the recycling bin. Trash. It does not pay to ask who on earth would leave an empty bag in a drawer - I have kids, which means I have trash littered around the place, and apparently I had simply stopped seeing it.
Start here. Before you make a single decision about anything meaningful, do a full pass through your home looking for actual trash. You will be amazed what has been living in your house rent free!
Category 2: Nice Trash
This one is my personal favorite category because it has a name now and that name is perfect (I made this one up because I had a lot of "nice trash"!)
Nice trash is the stuff that feels too good to throw away but is genuinely not usable or donateable. It is the shirt with a stain that you keep meaning to treat but never do - so you can't wear it and you can't donate it. It is the brass reindeer with a broken leg that you prop up carefully so he stays standing because you can't quite bring yourself to throw away a brass reindeer.
When you have to get rid of 90% of your belongings, the brass reindeer goes in the trash bag. Not the donate box - the trash bag. Because nobody at the hospice thrift store wants a three-legged reindeer either.
Nice trash is not a donation. It is not a maybe. It is trash with better packaging. Let it go.
Category 3: Stuff You Don't Actually Like
This one snuck up on me and I bet it will sneak up on you too!
There was a fair amount in my home that I do not actually like. Some of it I loved when we lived in Colorado and it had a cool vintage mountain vibe that just never translated to Florida. Some of it was gifts that were given with love but never really fit my taste. And somehow all of it just... stayed. For years.
Here is the question that cuts right through it: why am I surrounding myself with things I don't like?
No good reason. Out they go. If it is not something you genuinely love or use, it does not deserve space in your home - and certainly not in your new smaller one.
Category 4: Sentimental Stuff You Don't Like
And then there is this category. The harder one.
My mother-in-law has dementia and has been in a nursing home receiving full-time care for several years now. She lived with us for three years before that, and many of her belongings were still in our home four years after she left. I wanted to like her things. I really did. But they are simply not my style - and holding onto them was not honoring her or serving our family.
So I donated them to new homes where someone will actually love them.
This is not a betrayal of the person. It is not a betrayal of the memory. The love you have for someone does not live in their stuff - it lives in you. You can release the objects and keep every single feeling.
If you have sentimental items from someone you love that are just not your taste, give yourself permission to let them go to someone who will genuinely treasure them. That is a kindness, not a loss.
Category 5: Easy Donation Stuff
Now we are in the feel-good zone. This is the stuff that practically donates itself.
Clothes you don't like or that don't fit your body right now? In the box. No agonizing, no "but maybe someday" - in the box. I decided I would thrift new clothes that I actually like and that actually fit me now. Not the me of five years ago. Now me!
Cute tchotchkes that are sweet but not precious? In the box. The rule I used: if it was not a "hell yes" then it was a "get it out of here and let someone else love it."
I chose to donate rather than sell because it got things out of the house with minimal effort, I could do it incrementally as I went, and knowing my donations were going to our local hospice thrift store - where the proceeds help people who cannot help themselves - made every single box feel genuinely good to drop off.
Category 6: Hard Donation Stuff (aka Aspirational Things)
Okay. I need to tell you about the lamps.
I am absolutely certain that at some point in my life I am going to become a lamp designer. I love lamps. I have always loved lamps. And I had approximately twenty lamps worth of parts and pieces in a closet - not twenty complete lamps, mind you, but components and bases and shades that I KNEW I could turn into something cool.
This is aspirational stuff. It is the craft supplies for the hobby you haven't started yet. The fabric for the project you've been planning for three years. The equipment for the phase you were definitely going to go through.
I donated all but a couple of the lamp pieces I truly loved. And I made peace with the rest by reminding myself... keeping all of it was not making me a lamp designer. It was just making me a person with a closet full of lamp parts.
Keep a little, not a lot. More on this in the tips below!
Category 7: Someday Stuff
You know this stuff. You pick it up and your first thought is "what if I need this?" or "should I keep this just in case?"
Here is my rule: if your first thought is "what if" or "should I" - close your eyes, put it in the donate box, and 🎶 let it go, let it go!
The someday that justifies keeping that thing is almost never coming. And if it does come, you will find a new version of it and that will be its own small joy.
Tips That Actually Helped
Keep a little, not a lot. After we adopted our kids I made the most beautiful Christmas swags with them - about 40 feet of garland in Colorado colors that represented one of the happiest seasons of our family life.
I could not take 40 feet of garland into a smaller home.. so I kept four feet. Just enough to hold the whole memory. I did the same with the lamp collection - kept the few pieces I truly loved and released the rest. You do not have to choose between keeping the memory and releasing the bulk. You can do both.
Know your motivation. A lot of people freeze up because they are terrified of getting rid of the one thing that will somehow ruin their lives. For me that fear just does not exist - and here is why.
If I get rid of something and later realize I actually needed it, I get the thrill of finding a new one to replace it. I love the hunt! If you are also someone who genuinely enjoys finding things, this reframe will set you completely free.
Everything needs a place. If there is no room in your home for something, it has to leave. Not get shuffled to a different corner. Leave.
Watch enough YouTube organizing videos and you will see people trying to shove too much stuff into not enough space over and over again. The answer is never more storage. The answer is less stuff until what remains fits comfortably.
One Final Thought
I HAD to get rid of my stuff, which made the whole thing significantly easier. A hard deadline and a non-negotiable percentage will cut right through any hesitation.
But even if you are just decluttering without a move on the horizon - the categories still work. The framework still applies. And the permission is the same:
Be ruthless and unreasonable about what you are willing to get rid of!
Your home should be full of things you love, things you use, and things that serve the life you are actually living right now. Everything else is just taking up space that could be breathable and beautiful instead.
