57: 4 Ways to Declutter in February – An Experiment for ADHD Brains – Part 3 – Favorites First!

Favorites First: The Container Concept, Simplified

Before getting into today’s decluttering technique, I want to give credit to Dana K. White of A Slob Comes Clean for her thinking on containers, because it reframes the entire problem in a way worth sitting with.

Rethinking what a container actually means

We tend to think buying more containers is the fix for feeling cluttered, get the right bin, the right box, and suddenly things are organized. But the real issue was never fitting stuff into a container, it’s editing your stuff to match the space you actually have. If you have too many ornaments for one box, buying a second box doesn’t solve anything unless both boxes still fit comfortably in your storage space. The box is a container, but the storage area holding the boxes is also a container, and your home itself is the largest container of all. When you own more than your home can comfortably hold, that’s when everything starts to feel overwhelming, regardless of square footage.

Why bigger homes don’t fix clutter

I’ve organized homes as large as 14,000 square feet, and size was never the answer. People grow to fill whatever space they have. A cluttered household in 1,000 square feet will very likely end up equally cluttered in 2,000 square feet, just with more room to hide it. In fact, in the largest homes I’ve worked in, people have genuinely forgotten what they own, the extra space just gave them permission to stop thinking about it, not an actual solution.

The favorites-first method

Accept the space you actually have as fixed, then fill it with your favorite things first. A dresser drawer is the easiest place to try this. Pull everything out of a single drawer, say, t-shirts, and spread it all out on the bed. Ask yourself: out of everything clean, what’s the first shirt I always reach for? Fold it and place it back in the drawer. Then ask what’s your next favorite, and the next, continuing until the drawer starts to feel comfortably, not tightly, filled.

Knowing when to stop

The moment it feels like there’s still reasonable room but you wouldn’t want to cram in much more, stop. Ask yourself honestly: if this was genuinely all I had in this drawer, would it be enough? The answer is almost always yes, since most of us wear a small fraction of what we actually own. If you want a little extra buffer, allow yourself two or three more borderline favorites you’re glad to keep, then place those in too.

Letting the rest go without agonizing over it

Everything left on the bed gets removed. You don’t need to touch each item individually and ask when you last wore it or whether it sparks joy, you’ve already answered that implicitly by not reaching for it during the favorites-first sort. Box it up, set it aside for a month if you’re not ready to fully release it yet, and if you never go back to open that box, that’s your answer. Donate it without a second thought.

Your practical, actionable step

Pick one drawer that’s stuffed and hard to close. Empty it completely, then refill it by choosing your genuine favorites first, stopping once it feels comfortably full. Remove everything else without re-examining each piece individually.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.