Throw a 'Packing Party' to Declutter Your Home

Decluttering can be stressful and hard. How do you decide what stays and what goes? How do you part with the things that have taken up your space for so long? One way is by making it kind of fun. Try throwing a “packing party” with your friends to declutter over time. 

What is a packing party?

This idea comes from Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, a duo known as the Minimalists to the fans of their books and podcasts about decluttering and living a more meaningful, scaled-down life. You may even have seen their documentary on Netflix.

On their blog, Nicodemus shared a story about the origins of his minimalistic lifestyle and how a packing party with friends helped launch it. Before getting into what a packing party looks like, it’s worth mentioning a few things: First, you don’t have to do this with the goal of becoming a total minimalist and restructuring your entire life and philosophy; you can simply want to declutter your house a little bit. Second, having friends help you with cleaning and decluttering can be a smart (and more fun) move, but they're not super necessary for this. You can undertake this on your own if you don’t want to invite people to see your mess or you just want to get cracking on a personal project. 

How to have a packing party

You’re going to need boxes. You’re going to need a lot of boxes. That’s because you’re going to pretend, initially, that you’re moving out of your home. Step one is to pack everything you own into cardboard boxes as if you were heading out to a new place. Make sure you label every box with clear descriptions of the contents, like “kitchen utensils” or “athletic wear.” 

While you’re doing this, you can invite over some friends (to add the “party” element to “packing party”), order some pizza, and make a fun night of it. But don’t declutter while you’re packing. They’re not there to make judgment calls on your junk; they’re there to help you stick it in boxes. The actual decluttering will happen later. 

Once everything is boxed up and labeled, do nothing. Live your life as normal for three weeks, only pulling out what you need from a box when you need it. At the end of the three weeks, you’ll still have boxes full of stuff, plus the things you actually used in that time put back in their places within your home. For everything you haven't used, seriously consider if you need it in your life. Nicodemus says that after the three weeks, he sold or donated everything that was left in his boxes, which he estimates was a whopping 80% of his possessions. 

Obviously, there are exceptions: In those three weeks, for instance, you might not use the suit or nice dress you keep on hand for weddings, or the slow cooker you whip out for holiday meals. The idea of getting rid of everything you don’t use over a 21-day span is nice, but not entirely practical, so use your judgment. Consider sorting everything that remains in the boxes using the 12-12-12 method, setting limits for how many things you’ll throw away, donate, and keep. 

For three weeks, you’ll be living like you just moved into a brand-new home, but by the end of the experiment, the home actually will feel a little brand new.