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The viral '333 rule' promises to take the stress out of packing for good

A great solution for chronic over-packers.

Representative Image from Canva

Packing isn't easy. Even for the lightest of packers.

Sure, there are many people who find light packing a breeze. Those brave souls who come alive at the thought of living three weeks in a foreign country out of a carry on bag.

But then there’s the rest of us. The ones who work ourselves into a headache trying to load our suitcases with every possible outfit that could be needed for the trip…because you never know when you might need a parka and flip-flops on the same trip. (Hey, it could happen! The Alps have hot tubs!)

But luckily, there are a few tips and tricks that chronic overpacker can incorporate to help them feel truly prepared, without having to jam their entire closet into a suitcase.

That’s where the “333 packing method” comes in.

333 packing seems to come from—or at least be inspired by—minimalist fashion blogger Courtney Carver, whose “Project 333” encourages people to declutter by committing to only 33 items of clothing for 3 months. But the concept seems to have taken on a life of its own on TikTok, and its helping travelers of all kinds pack with peace of mind.


The rules of 333 packing are pretty straightforward: pack three tops, three bottoms, and three pairs of shoes. These basic ingredients potentially create dozens of outfits, all of which fit into a carry-on.

The trend really started blowing up after influencers began striking poses in all their different ensemble combinations, tallying upwards of 20.

@ayeshayeshbaby6 the 333 method is a life saver for me when im traveling. it helps me come up with tons of outfit ideas and not overpack #capsulewardrobe #traveloutfit #stylingtips #CapCut ♬ original sound - Ayesha
@itssarasmiles The 333 method really helped me narrow down exactly what I needed for my trip so that I wouldn’t overpack #vacationoutfitinspo #styletips #packinghacksfortravel #333method #stylishtravel ♬ original sound - Style with Sara
@daniela.brkic The 333 method is a lifesaver for not overpacking when travelling + creating heaps of different outfit ideas! #capsulewardrobe #traveloutfit #girlstrip #stylingtips #stylingideas #capsulewardrobeideas ♬ ♡ ᶫᵒᵛᵉᵧₒᵤ ♡ - SoBerBoi

However, there are some caveats. It helps if you keep your clothing choices stick to basics in neutral colors, since they are the least likely to clash and can be zhuzhed up with an accessory or two. Plus, for areas where there are large changes in climate, you might be better off packing an extra layer.

Many found that even if they customized a bit—allowing themselves 1-2 “fun” items, for example, or switching up the ratio to 5 tops, two pants, etc.—they still benefited from being completely intentional about getting the most out of whatever went with them on their travels.

“Every time I do it, I stare at my bed where all my clothes and shoes are and think, ‘Wow this seems too simple. There’s no way I can make 17-18 outfits out of just this.’ But then I do,” fashion influencer Krista Lavrusik and 333 outfit aficionado shared with HuffPost.

Bottom line: it might seem like we are easing our anxiety to prepare for inevitable loss of control that comes with traveling to new places, but often we still end up just as stressed by having to lug around so much. If this sounds like you, give the 333 method a whirl. You just might save time and luggage space. Oh, and, you know, actually enjoy that vacation you’re packing for.

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Family

Empty nesters share their genius—and surprisingly touching—secret to downsizing

Jimmy Dunne/Facebook

Jimmy and Catherine Dunne figured out the secret to downsizing.

When your final child leaves the house for good, it's like a whole new world has opened up. The decades raising babies and children are full, rich, exciting and loud. Your house is filled with laughter and sibling bickering, school projects and kid collections, never-ending laundry and food purchased in bulk. Life is big during those years. It takes up space physically, mentally and emotionally.

Then come the empty nest years, when you find yourself swimming in a house full of unused rooms and piles of memories. Suddenly you don't need all that space anymore, and you have to figure out what to do with those rooms and those piles and those memories.

For one couple, the process of downsizing brought about a reflection on their family life, their relationship with their kids and their stuff. Jimmy Dunne shared that reflection on Facebook in a viral post that's resonating with many people who are at or near this stage in life.


Dunne wrote:

"My wife Catherine and I recently moved.

I realized I had something I never knew I had.

Thirty-four years ago, I carried my wife in my arms over the threshold in our home. Thirty-four years ago. From newlywed days, to witnessing our babies go from little girls to young adults. So many great memories in every inch of every room of our home.

I didn’t think I was ready to ‘downsize.’ What an awful word. I liked walking through our girl’s bedrooms and still seeing their stuff on the walls and on the shelves. I liked our backyard. I liked imagining our kids coming down the steps every Christmas morning.

We put it on the market, it sold in a couple days, and suddenly agreements thicker than my leg were instructing me to clear everything I ever had and knew – out.

Every night I found myself saying goodbye to our backyard, to our garden of roses that Catherine would till and trim, to the sidewalk where the girls drove their Barbie cars and learned to ride their bikes, to our front lawn where we hosted tons of talent shows with all the kids on the block – and the red swing on the front porch.

We found a condo in town and started lining up our ducks of what we were keeping, and what we were tossing. We vowed, if we’re going to do this, we weren’t putting anything in storage.

I literally threw out half my stuff. Half. Half of the furniture. Half of my clothes, books. And the big one… way more than half the boxes in the attic.

The attic was more than an attic. It held our stories. Every thing in every box, every framed picture was a story. After we gave away almost all of the living room furniture, we split the room in half and brought down everything of the girls from the attic and from their rooms. We invited the girls over, handed them a cocktail and said, “There’s good news and bad news. We’ve saved all this stuff; your outfits, drawings, dolls, skates -- for you. It’s now yours. The bad news, whatever’s not gone by Friday at 10 in the morning, it’s getting chucked in that giant green dumpster in front of the house.”

The girls thought we were Mr. and Mrs. Satan. But they went through it, and that Friday, most of it went out the front door and right in the dumpster.

I filled the entire dining room with boxes of all my old stuff. Grade school stories and pictures, report cards, birthday cards, trophies, you name it. Boxes of old plaques and diplomas and just stuff and stuff and stuff like that. How could I throw any of this out? I may as well have been throwing me in the dumpster!

But this little jerk on my shoulder kept asking -- what are your kids going to do with all this a week after you're six feet under? They’re gonna chuck it all out!

Here’s the crazy thing. The more I threw stuff in there, the easier it got. And I started to kind of like throwing it up and over in that thing. I started to feel lighter. Better.

And we moved in a half-the-size condo – and the oddest thing happened.

It became our home.

A picture here and there on the wall, Catherine’s favorite pieces of furniture, all her knickknacks in the bathroom. We blinked, and it looked and felt just like us.

And then I found that thing I never knew I had.

Enough.

I had enough.

The wild thing was that having less – actually opened the door to so much more. More in my personal life. More in my career. More in everything.

All I have to do is look in the eyes of my two girls -- and they take me back, every time, to the most beautiful, colorful, emotional scrapbook I could ever dream of having.

All I have to do is hold my wife’s hand, and it hypnotizes me back to kissing her for the first time, falling in love with everything she did, seeing her in that hospital room holding our first baby for the first time.

It sure seems there is so much more to see, and feel, and be – if I have the courage, if I have the will to shape a life that’s just…

Enough."

People have shared Dunne's post more than 24,000 times and it's easy to see why. He's speaking a truth we probably all know deep down on some level. Things don't make a life. Things don't make relationships. They don't even make memories, though we tend to hold onto them as if they do. We may associate places and things with memories, but we don't need the places and things for our memories to live on.

Kudos to Dunne and his wife for looking ahead to what their children would have to go through after they pass if they didn't go through it now themselves. And kudos to them for truly embracing the freedom that comes with having raised your children to adulthood. The empty nest years can be whatever you choose to make of them, and this couple has figured out a key to making the most of theirs.



The empty nest years that follow are whatever you make of them.

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Family

Lessening how much stuff you have can bring you joy. But it can also protect our planet.

True
Savers

Have you ever thought about how much stuff you have?

Think about everything — from furniture to appliances all the way to that shirt you bought on sale that one time that you swear you're going to wear one day. How much do you estimate it adds up to? (Don't worry, we'll wait.)

Well? GIF via "Coming to America."

Have that number in mind? Hold on to it.

Now get this: The number of things in the average American home by one projection is 300,000.

Yes, that's a huge number. (Although when you consider all the little knickknacks we have lying around, 300,000 might not be that bad? I mean, my kitchen drawer alone probably has a thousand things in it right now.)

Story of my life.

But when you compare that number to people living a minimalist lifestyle, 300,000 things can seem astronomical.

For instance, one man from Japan, Fumio Sasaki, has only 150 items to his name. That's it! Yet he's perfectly content and feels that having less stuff has allowed him to hone in on what really matters in life.

He told Reuters, "Spending less time on cleaning or shopping means I have more time to spend with friends, go out, or travel on my days off. I have become a lot more active."

Minimalists Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus sum it up perfectly on their website, aptly titled The Minimalists, by saying: "Minimalism is a tool to rid yourself of life’s excess in favor of focusing on what’s important — so you can find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom."

Granted, owning only 150 things may be a bit more on the extreme side of minimalism, but New York Times best-selling author Marie Kondo presents a slightly different approach.

In her world-renowned book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up," Kondo writes about getting rid of stuff that doesn't bring you joy so as to maximize your own happiness. You can own as little or as much as you like, but if that DVD collection of "Dawson's Creek" you've had lying around for years doesn't really make you feel anything anymore, chuck it!

Don't worry, Dawson. It'll be OK. GIF via "Dawson's Creek."

Now, whichever side of the spectrum you gravitate more toward, the same idea seems to come out — clearing away clutter can actually change your life for the better.

That being said, do a lot of us have too much stuff?

Back in 2007, Annie Leonard answered that question with her revolutionary documentary, "The Story of Stuff." She brought to light how people's desire for more was severely hurting our planet's resources and the health of many.

The life cycle of stuff: extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. Image via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube.

As more and more people buy and consume more things, big businesses are compelled to produce more products at a quicker rate to ensure a profit. But in the process, they pay little attention to the depletion of natural resources and, of course, the accumulation of waste. It's a vicious cycle.

That's where The Story of Stuff Project comes in.

It's a community of changemakers all working toward continuing the mission that the original documentary set in motion.

"The Story of Stuff Project exists to look at the system of the materials in our lives and the economies that support them — from extraction to disposal," Stiv Wilson, director of campaigns, explained. "We’re really concerned with how we make use and dispose of the stuff in our lives and ultimately, what we do with the project is create stories about different points in the system and mobilize citizens to then take action towards metric outcomes that benefit both the environment and people."

When stages in the life cycle work together, great things can happen. GIF via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube.

Through different methods of storytelling — from podcasts to books to mini-movies — The Story of Stuff Project is zeroing in on important issues that have a global impact. Whether it's their tell-all on the hazards of plastic water bottles or their movement to ban plastic microbeads in toiletries from wreaking havoc on the ecosystem, there is no doubt these changemakers are telling the stories that can help make the world a better place.

Remember that number from the beginning? Think about it again.

A lot us can get caught up in wanting more stuff. But with a little reevaluation, keeping our numbers down makes it possible to improve our own well-being, the well-being of others, and the planet.

And should you decide to start lessening the things that don't bring you joy, keep in mind that donating it could spark some joy in someone else. Maybe it's just a matter of finding a creative way to reuse it.

In fact, a little creativity can go a long way. One study found that if 300 million Americans reused just one shirt, that would save 210 billion gallons of water and 1 billion pounds of CO2. Imagine that.

So next time you think about throwing away some stuff, just remember all the other factors that come along with it. Yes, it might seem pretty small at first — but trust us — the impact is monumental.

Family

If the urge to clean out your closet strikes, don’t toss your old clothes.

When you're done with your clothes, their life cycle has just begun.

True
Savers

Spring cleaning has been around since long before Martha Stewart.

Historians think the tradition of spring cleaning evolved because, especially in colder climates, people tended to hole up in their houses during the winter. Families spent most of their time indoors with fires and wood stoves burning because of the cold weather. You can imagine how grimy your house might get if you were trying to stay warm for several months without electricity or central heat.


GIF from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

When spring came and brought warmer weather with it, families (OK, let’s be real — women) threw open the windows, let the fresh air in, and cleaned out all the soot and dust that had accumulated over the winter.

That makes a lot of sense to me. This winter, I learned about the concept of koselig, which means “cozy” in Norwegian. People in Norway get through long, dark winters by embracing koselig: staying inside with blankets, lighting candles, drinking hot chocolate. So that’s what I did. I went out less and invited friends over to my house for wine more. I lit candles every night. I walked around the house in a blanket draped over my shoulders like a cape.

Pretty much sums up my winter. GIF from "Parks and Recreation."

Of course, winter in Texas is a lot shorter than winter in Norway. But still, by the time daylight saving time came around, I was ready to pack up my coats and blankets and have a major cleaning day.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent my entire Saturday deep-cleaning my house — for the very first time.

Don't get me wrong. I clean my house regularly. I'm not Oscar the Grouch. But I hadn't done a full, capital-A Adult, all-day spring cleaning before. Here's what I learned.

1. The best way to avoid throwing away junk is to stop buying junk.

Half of spring cleaning is just going through all the stuff you own and throwing away what you don't want or need. I found things that I've bought over the past year that I haven't even used once: a vegetable steamer, cookbooks, clothes that I only wore once or twice. After taking a long, hard look at my "get rid of it" pile, I'm going to be a lot more cognizant about my purchases this year. It's a win-win: saving money and cutting down on waste.

2. You can donate or recycle pretty much anything.

Lots of reusable items end up in landfills when they could have found new homes. It's bad for the Earth, and it just feels better to donate your stuff instead of trashing it.

Clothing and textiles are some of the worst offenders. Even those holey jeans and worn-down shoes that can't be resold could eventually be recycled and repurposed into home insulation or rags. But 85% of recyclable clothing ends up in the trash. Make sure to donate all of your old clothes and towels, not just the ones you think would sell.

Wow, this person is organized. Photo via velkr0/Flickr.

3. Having less stuff makes us value the stuff we do have more.

Seriously. Marie Kondo hasn't sold millions of copies of her book for naught. Making a conscious choice to keep the clothing and other household items I love and to send the ones I'm done with on to their next owner — who, with any luck, will love them just as much as I once did — is empowering. Plus, living in a tidy environment is good for your mental and physical health, and a great way to keep your home tidy is by having less stuff to tidy up.

Clothes are much happier here than in a landfill. Photo via Neesa Rajbhandari/Wikimedia Commons.

So what are you waiting for? Go forth and clean! And when it's time to take all your old stuff to a resale shop, snap a pic and post it on our Facebook page.

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