← George Kamel
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- [00:06]
A
America has a love affair with stuff. I mean, our garages aren't just for parking cars anymore, and we rent tiny houses called storage units just to hold the extra stuff we can no longer shove on our attics and basements. So what's the Internet's answer? Decluttering with a new trend called the poop test. And today I'll be doing it live on camera. Just kidding. You won't need latex gloves for this poop test. That was a close one. But we are going to scope out this new concept by explaining what it is and how it works. Plus, I'll be joined by my good friend Joshua Fields Milburn of the Minimalists to talk about decluttering tips that are proven to work and hopefully less fecally focused. All right, let's head over to TikTok to see what the poop test is all about.
- [00:49]
B
I just learned the most amazing, like, filter and way to look at life when you're, like, cleaning up and straightening up. And so I needed to share it. You know how some people say, like, oh, if it sparkles, if it speaks to you, then you keep it? That has never made sense sense to me because I just. I can't. My brain doesn't. It doesn't work that way. But I just read a thing that said, if there was poop on it, would you wash it off or would you throw it away? And that's the filter for which you get rid of things or keep them. That's perfect. It's wonderful. I'm gonna go apply it right, like, right now. Right, right now.
- [01:16]
A
Thank you, healing Rachel for that wonderfully informative video. So now that we know what this new trend is all about, let's put it into action with an all new game called Splash it or trash it. My producers have picked out five things personally own, and I'll be putting each of them through the poop test. And I have not seen any of these, to be clear. So pull up a stool because it's time to dig in. What did that just mean? Item number one through the poop test. Oh, my velvet couch. I'm glad it's not my dog. You guys didn't put my dog in this, did you? Velvet couch. Splash it or trash it. Oh, man, that's a tough. I mean, if it's getting in, if it's deep in the cushion, and it depends on whose poop it was, my dog's poop I'd somehow be more okay with than if it was human poop, you know what I mean? You know, this couch has seen better days. I think I'm good to just then go, this is an emergency couch situation. Time for a new couch. But the dog. Wash the dog off. The dog can stay. Splash it. Next on the list, we have my bedjet. Oh, okay. I need this for quality sleep. This is something I can easily buy again. And I think if I reached out to bedjet and explained the situation, that I got fecal matter on the bedjet and it's no longer usable. I think they might send me one just to be like, hey, man, you're going through a lot. It's on us. But because this is an electronic that's easily, I guess, wipeable. Now, if it got like in the grates, different situation. But if it's just like sitting on top, I'm going to go splash it. That's worth keeping. It's a few hundred bucks. It's a nice item. All right, next up on splash it or trash it, we've got my Tesla. You can find me there in the frunk. I hate myself more than you do. I just want you to know that Tesla for sure is going to be a splash it. It's a. It's a car. I hope it's on the outside of the car. You know what I mean? If it's on the inside of the car, depending on how much is inside. But I think a nice professional detail can do wonders. So absolutely splash it. Cars are very expensive. I don't feel like buying a new to me vehicle right now, especially one that I can fit in. So splashing it. We're doing great so far. Next up, we have my daughter. She generally has poop on her, so absolutely we're splashing it. We're not gonna trash it. It's insane. I made that. Golly. Also, thank you for putting the emoji over her face. Cause I guess one day she'll see this video and hate me even more for it. But I guess she'll have good proof in therapy of what happened, what caused the trauma. We can point back to the poop test video where I featured her and the team said, hey, would you trash a baby or would you clean it off if it had poop on it? So this will pay for her therapy. Hope it gets lots of views. Absolutely splash it. Look at that cute face. There she is. And lastly, I don't know where we could go from here. Lip balm. Wait for it. Nailed it. Lip balm is absolutely going to be a trash it situation because it's like three bucks so it really depends on the value of what it costs and the value to me personally, emotionally. I don't have a lot of emotional attachment to this particular lip balm. But if you think I'm gonna have a chapstick like a chapstick brand, get out of here. That stuff makes your lips more chapped. Prove me wrong. That was a lot of fun. I had a good time. I don't care if you did. Some things are just for me. So obviously the poop test is hilarious. But is it effective? Well, let me start by saying that I'm totally on board with the reason the poop test exists. Because having a bunch of clutter in your house is usually the result of spending money on a lot of crap you don't need. Pun intended. Plus, my friend Dr. John DeLoney talks about how being surrounded by piles of junk can quickly become a major source of anxiety. So I like that the poop test trend is encouraging minimalism and intentionality. But it can only only take us so far when it comes to swapping out consumerism for minimalism. So to give us a better idea of how to stop our over consumption habit, I reached out to my friend, Joshua Fields Milburn. He makes up one half of the Minimalists, a duo of best selling authors and Emmy nominated Netflix stars who help people live more meaningful lives by letting go of excess stuff and focusing on what truly matters. And today, Josh is going to join me virtually to share some practical, not so poopy ways to cut the clutter and free up space mentally, physically and financially. But before we get to Josh and ways to clean up your clutter, let's take a quick bathroom break so I can tell you about the best way to clean up your digital footprint. And that's by signing up for Delete Me, a sponsor of today's video. Thanks to AI, phishing attacks and other types of online scams have gotten really sophisticated. And if your personal data is floating around on the Internet unchecked, you've got a big target on your back. And that's why Delete Me combs through hundreds of shady data broker sites to remove your personal info and make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. And right now, you can get 20% off their annual plans, which comes out to just nine bucks a month by going to JoinDeleteMe.com George or click the link and get in the description below. All right, enough potty talk. Let's get to my conversation with one of the minimalists, Joshua Fields Milburn. Joshua, welcome. How you Been man.
- [06:27]
C
Hey, I'm outstanding. Thanks for having me.
- [06:29]
A
So help help my my viewers out. What is a better way to decide whether you should keep something or get rid of it? Because the poop rule ain't doing it for me.
- [06:38]
C
I actually like the poop rule, but I've got some better ways to approach your things. The average American household has 300,000 items in it, and that'd be wonderful. It's making us more happy and more peaceful and was completing. We often buy a thing because we think it's going to complete us, but it does the opposite. It incompletes us. It gets in the way. Anything that gets in the way is clutter. The minimalist came up with these 16 rules for living with less. They're not really rules. They're just boundaries. They're adjustable for your life. If you go into your closet, one of the rules that works really well for me is the 9090 rule. You pull out anything that's in your closet. You know, those old sweatpants from 1998. Or maybe you have, like, an oversized jacket you haven't worn in a while, or that sweater. And you ask your yourself, have I worn this in the last 90 days? And if the answer is no, then okay, will I wear it in the next 90 days? Because right now it's the end of summer. And no, I haven't worn my winter coat in the last 90 days. But, yeah, I know I'm going to wear it within the next 90 days, so I'm going to hold on to that. But if the answer is no to both of those questions, then I give myself permission to let it go. If 90 days is too radical for you, then make it 180 days. Or if it's not radical enough, maybe it's the 3030 rule for you. The important thing is that we own a lot of clothes that we never wear. Another thing that really helps with clothes is the hate that shirt rule. You ever go into your closet, you put on a shirt and you're like, I don't know, man, this just doesn't fit me. That right? It looked great on the mannequin, but it doesn't look good on me. I kind of hate this shirt. Well, I don't just put it back in the closet and say, well, I'll just get rid of it someday. Or maybe I'll put it on. I'll keep it just in case. Right? The hate that shirt rule says, instead of putting it back in your closet, get rid of it, Donate it, sell it, get it out of the House. If you hate it today, there's a great chance you're gonna hate it tomorrow. Here's one more for you. I call it the spontaneous combust rule. You can take any item in your home, you pick it up, and you say, okay, if this item were to spontaneously combust, how would I feel? Would I feel a sense of loss, like, oh, that's my favorite coffee mug. Or would I feel a sense of relief, like, whew, I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. And if it's the latter, if I'd feel a sense of relief if that thing spontaneously combusted, I want to get it out of my life once and for all. Get it out of the home today.
- [08:54]
A
I love those. And honestly, if something spontaneously combusted in my house, my first question would be, why was there an explosive device in this thing? That's frightening, but I love the concept. That's a way better version of the poop rule. If this exploded randomly, that's way more exciting than, like, who got poop on this again? You know, that's not as fun. So decluttering can get overwhelming. Like, when I unload my junk drawer, I just go, oh, gosh. What's the easiest place to start with when decluttering, when you feel overwhelmed?
- [09:22]
C
I'll tell you where not to start. First, don't start with the difficult things. Don't go to your sentimental items, like, oh, that thing grandma left me when she died 14 years ago. Oh, should I get rid of it? I don't know. It's just so precious to me, you know? There is no such thing as a sentimental item, though. There's only sentimental people. If I gave you my sentimental items, you'd be like, get rid of these. These aren't sentimental to me at all. But I always start in the places that we spend the most time in. It's either the living room or the bedroom. Those are areas that we spe a lot of time in. And so we have a lot of mental clutter that is caused by the physical clutter in those spaces. In fact, our material possessions are just a physical manifestation of whatever's going on inside us. So if I look around my house and I've got a lot of external clutter, it's because I have a lot of internal clutter, emotional clutter, spiritual clutter. Maybe I have calendar clutter or relationship clutter or financial clutter or career clutter. There's a lot of clutter in our lives, and it starts with the stuff.
- [10:18]
A
What this really gets to as well is the accumulation of stuff. Like we have tiny houses called storage units that Americans put their extra stuff in just in case. So how do we stay content in a culture that says you need more? And what about if and just in case? How do you just pause and go, I don't need that?
- [10:36]
C
Those are the three most dangerous words in the English language, just in case, because they allow us to hold on to anything that we might need in some non existent hypothetical future. I can justify holding on to anything. Why deal with it today when I can just put it off until tomorrow? Right, right. And so we come up with something called the just in case rule. It's in the minimalist rule book. You can download it for free over@the minimalists.com but the just in case rule is anything I'm holding on to just in case I can let go of it, because I know I can replace it for less than $20 in less than 20 minutes from wherever I am. So we call it the 2020 rule. And at first, that seems like an incredible rule of privilege. Like, I don't want to go around every day wasting $20 replacing all of these items. Guess what? You never have to use it. You never end up replacing those just in case items. I've been a minimalist for 15 years now, and I've had to replace five just in case items I've gotten rid of. That's about 100 bucks over the course of 15 years. But you know what that's done for me? It's given me permission to let go of tens of thousands of just in case items that are getting in the way. And better yet, by letting go of that excess stuff, I've been able to contribute beyond myself. Because if I'm keeping it in my basement or my attic or my cabinets or my storage locker, which, by the way, costs you money every month. If I'm holding onto it, I'm selfishly clinging. No one's getting value from those things, including me. In fact, it's extracting value from my life. But if I let it go, if I donate it to a charity or to a shop where someone else can use it, or maybe I sell it on ebay or Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. Now someone else is getting value from those things. Just because it's clutter to me doesn't mean that someone else can't get value from it. If and only if I'm willing to let it go.
- [12:18]
A
Well, I'll tell you what I struggle with. The sunk cost Fallacy. I go, hey, I paid good money for that thing. You want me to just donate it to Goodwill? No, I'll list it on ebay or Facebook Marketplace. I'll get around to that someday. Then you're getting Lowball offers of $5. You navigate 17 messages with people not showing up. You end up selling it or giving it away for a measly price. And then you're just angry with yourself going, never again. And then you repeat the process. So how do you speak to someone like that who kind of has that wired in them or who goes, hey, I declutter once a year, and suddenly the clutter enters my life again.
- [12:50]
C
Yeah, decluttering is about reaching an end point. It's more like a horizon. As soon as you get there, there's a new horizon. I wish I could say, here are the hundred items that you should own, George, and then you'll be happy for the rest of your life. But of course, as your life changes, your circumstances change. And what adds value to your life changes as well. And so we have something called the selling deadline rule. If I want to let go of something, first, I set a threshold for me. I'm not trying to sell things that are five bucks. It's not worth the time. I'd rather donate those things. But if I', debt, maybe it's anything over 20 bucks. That's what it was for me. Now that I'm not in debt, it's pretty great. I can say anything over 100 bucks, I'll try to sell. But that's where the selling deadline rule comes in. We talk about this all the time on the Minimalist podcast. When people call into our show and they're trying to part with something, and. And how do I let go of this thing? And we set a selling deadline. I try to sell it on Facebook Marketplace, and if it doesn't sell within a week, I lower the price. If it doesn't sell within 30 days, I donate it. If I can't donate it because no one will take that old mattress or pillow or what, I will find a way to recycle it. And ultimately, if I can't recycle it, there are some things that must end up in a landfill. I mean, let's face it, it's already in a landfill called your house. Right now, you're holding on to something that is trash. I'd rather go through that whole process. Yes, there'll be some things that we have to throw away, but we can sell certain things. The key, though, is to get it out of my life in a respectable period of time so I don't keep clinging.
- [14:12]
A
So good man. All of these are beat the poop rule all day long. So thank you for this wisdom. The rules, the boundaries, the practical advice. It's why you're my go to guy when I need to declutter my physical life and my mental life. You just bring me Zen so I appreciate what you do. Can you tell the people what you're up to, where they can find you?
- [14:32]
C
Yeah, you can always just find us. At theminimalists.com you can find our social media, our podcast, our Netflix films and everything else. Theminimalists.com and I had the pleasure on.
- [14:42]
A
Being on said podcast and we'll link that episode if you want to hear the conversation that we had as well as your website. So thanks so much Joshua man, Be well. Stay decluttered.
- [14:53]
C
It's a joy to see you.
- [14:54]
A
Big thanks to Joshua for joining me today. And if there's one thing to take away from all this, it's that getting rid of excess stuff won't just clear your closet, it's also gonna clear your mind and your budget. Less junk always leads to more joy. Now I will say the poop test is not the only crazy Gen Z trend that you need to be aware of because I recently made this video breaking down how the zoomers have created a new strategy to micro retire. So click here to check it out or use the link in the description below. That's it for today. Be sure to hit like on this video. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.