Decluttering consultants recommend a four-box system, a free weekend, and an honest conversation with every object you own.
One box is enough. Sweep the room’s entire contents into it, write “SORT LATER” on the side in confident marker, and place it somewhere transitional — a landing, say. The room is now minimalist and the box is now infrastructure. Our researchers checked back after eighteen months: the box had not been opened, but it had been dusted, which counts as a system.