Coaching practices for How to Decide What to Keep

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Decide What to Keep, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I keep feeling like I should clear things out but the urge has no shape to it
• Whenever I try to clean house I ask "is this useful?"
• Whenever I try to narrow down what matters most I can’t bring myself to actually cut anything
• This has slowly piled up with so many steps and features that it feels heavy, and I’m sure some of them are just there out of habit
• I want to cut back but I honestly can’t tell which apps I genuinely need for life and work and which ones just snuck in and became habit

Practices that may help

1. Start with the why, not the closet
   Name what you are decluttering FOR before you touch a single drawer.
   Minimalism, Made Practical
2. Screen tools against your values
   Admit a technology only if it strongly supports something you deeply value — and is the best way to do so.
   Digital Minimalism, Made Practical
3. Circle your top 5 without negotiating
   From 25, choose exactly 5 — the ones you’d feel worst about not doing.
   Warren Buffett’s Two-List Strategy
4. Eliminate
   Ask: what could be removed, simplified, or reduced without losing what makes this valuable?
   SCAMPER: A Systematic Creativity Technique
5. Define which technologies are "optional" before you begin
   Map every digital tool you use and categorize each as essential, useful, or optional — the declutter targets optional only.
   The Digital Declutter, Made Practical
6. The just-in-case test
   If you can replace an item in 20 minutes for $20, you can let it go.
   Minimalism, Made Practical
7. Pre-commit to a hard option limit
   Decide in advance how many options you will consider — then stick to that number.
   Choice Overload, Made Practical
8. Run a values card sort
   Sort a deck of value words into keep/maybe/discard to surface what actually matters.
   Values Clarification, Made Practical
9. Run the reverse test: what would you give up if income dropped?
   Test your spending choices by asking which you’d cut first if income fell — that reveals what is genuinely valued.
   Lifestyle Creep: Why Raises Don’t Make You Richer
10. Capture what resonates — not everything
    Save notes, highlights, and ideas only when they genuinely spark something — not out of obligation.
    Building a Second Brain (BASB), Made Practical

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