I Tried the “Doom Diamond” Method, and It Helped Me Clear Clutter in 30 Minutes

As a parent of two kids with ADHD, I’ve become a big fan of using “doom boxes” to help keep clutter at bay. After discovering this on the ADHD corner of TikTok I learned that “doom” is an acronym for “didn’t organize, only moved,” and a doom box is a container in which you store various items for the time being. It’s meant to be a temporary solution to clutter that many people with or without ADHD can use, such as when you’re about to have company or when you just need a clean work space. 

However, many of mine tend to stick around far longer than intended. In fact, some of my doom boxes have been sitting untouched for years. So when I learned about the “doom diamond” method, which promised to make the process of decluttering feel a lot less overwhelming, I decided it was time to deal with one of my boxes.

In an Instagram Reel creator Abigail Roe shared what she calls the “doom diamond” method, which is a simple way to sort through clutter without overthinking it. Here’s how it works: You place your doom box (or a manageable pile of items) in the center of the floor, then sort everything into four categories — trash, items with a home, items without a home, and action items — in a diamond shape around you.

Most of these are self-explanatory, but “action items” are things that require an extra step before they can be put away (like a bill that needs to be paid or a necklace that needs untangling). Once everything is sorted, you tackle each category based on your energy level. Start with the lowest-effort tasks (like tossing trash), then work your way up to more involved decisions (like figuring out where to store items without a home). 

The method feels like an adaptation of the decluttering framework popularized by KC Davis in her book How to Keep House While Drowning, which focuses on sorting mess into a handful of simple categories. The “doom diamond” adapts that idea specifically for clutter piles and doom boxes.

I picked a doom box that had been quietly haunting me for years. It was too big to store properly, so it had been sitting on the floor in front of my bookshelf. I didn’t think about it every day, but every time I tidied I saw it sitting there (where it was collecting dust). To keep myself on track, I made quick notecards for each category and started sorting. At first I hesitated a bit when deciding between “action items” and “items without a home,” but I used my best judgement. 

My trash pile really could have been three sub-categories: donate, trash, and recycle, so I handled that first. Then I went through the items with a home and took about three trips to get them where they needed to be throughout the house. The “action items” were manageable: a light-up dog collar that needed charging and a telescope piece with instructions that I saved to ask my son about later.

For items without a home, I really only had one pencil case, so I put it in the office and called it a day. By the end, I was left with just one item in the box — the rest was handled. And because it was no longer overflowing, I could finally store the box on a shelf instead of the floor. All in all, the whole project took me less than 30 minutes.

As with many tasks, once you actually get down to it you realize that it doesn’t take that long to deal with (which is a good lesson for me and my many doom boxes). However, because my energy level was pretty low to start with, I decided to limit myself to one box and took to the couch to enjoy a clear carpet — devoid of random doom boxes.