I Tried the “Didn’t Know” Rule to Declutter Quickly

Decluttering is hard work. Even if you’re committed to getting rid of at least some of the unnecessary stuff cluttering up your space, it can be difficult to part with any of it.

But what if you didn’t know you had something hiding away on a shelf or in a closet? What if you bought or were gifted something you planned to use, but then you forgot it even existed? That’s what Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus of The Minimalists would like you to consider. 

The Minimalists’ “Didn’t Know” Rule is simple: If you find something you didn’t know you owned, you can permit yourself to let go. 

I won’t lie. I started to sweat. I imagined my husband and I scouring every inch of our closets and the basement, armed with very big garbage bags. And as much as I was excited by the premise of filling those garbage bags, neither of us was in the mood to start a project like that.

But I was energized by the thought of donating or discarding things sight unseen on a smaller scale. That’s when I remembered the trio of large storage boxes on a shelf in the corner of my office. I bought them to contain some overflow of notebooks, office supplies, and … well, actually, I didn’t know what else since I hadn’t opened the boxes in about a year.

I decided they were ready for the “didn’t know” treatment. Here’s how it went.

I was tempted to simply dump the contents of those boxes and call it a day, but I knew that they contained a pile of brand-new notebooks and writing pads, as well as quite a few filled ones that I did want to hang on to for a while. As for the rest, I prepared to purge by gathering up three bags: one for regular garbage, one for recycling, and one for donating.  

I opened up all three boxes and saw I was right: There were indeed some items I was storing for a reason, such as tax returns from recent years (too soon to shred), filled journals, and lots of blank paper and pads. Given that I’m a writer who favors handwriting, I resolved to make this paper more accessible so that I would use it and not buy more of it until I did.

Taking up an entire box was a pile of TilePix I had purchased around three years ago when I snagged a sale. These photos from my phone didn’t render well at all, so I had no desire to hang them in our home. They went right into the garbage pile; I have the originals on my phone anyway, and I had completely forgotten I even had these in storage.

With that box now empty, I started to fill it with the paper that I knew I’d be using as time went on. Wow, there was a lot. I pulled it out, along with some unused office supplies, to donate either to a local school or nonprofit. The rest of the stuff was some magazines that I tossed into the recycling pile and some old documents that I could shred.  

I closed the lid on the one box and stared down at two empty boxes. Had I just decluttered three storage boxes down to just one in 10 minutes? Yes, I had. Here’s what I learned:

I reveled in my quick win, though I admit I still wasn’t ready to tackle the living room closet. However, it’s only because given the amount of forgotten stuff hiding in there, I know I’ll need much larger bags and a scheduled pickup call with my local clothing drive.