This is exactly my problem. It's easy enough to say "give it away if you won't use it soon" but how do you know? That urge might come on any time, and the act of giving it away is likely to reignite that passion.

And for small things, like cables you don't often use... You never know when you'll need them. I've been telling myself I'm just going to throw them away after all, but then within a month of deciding that, I end up using a cable that I hadn't even seen in 2 years, and I had to hunt pretty hard for it. And it's a $10+ cable.

The article sounds like it's going to address these issues with the dots, but then just doesn't. I'm actually not even sure what the point of the dots is other than to convince the author that they're doing something about their problem, when they're really just putting stickers on things and buying more bins.

> The problem is... what if I want to make ice cream?

The extreme form of this causes:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoarding#Anxiety

For ice cream specifically, America's Test Kitchen has you covered with "How to Make Homemade Ice Cream Without A Machine":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Ml3U39xqs

And their video on some of the science behind making good ice cream:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St-8kZ7vmfI

towards the end he talks about this, dots determine how frequent it is used, therefore how close in proximity it should be to his work area. stuff which was dotted rarely or not at all was put into his shed outside, but even then he still had it and used it for a project later on.

if you're not going to use your ice cream maker every week, why have it on your kitchen counter, or kitchen shelf, put it away in a cupboard

You give yourself an arbitrary number of years you feel is too long to hold onto something without using it, and you stick to it.

Determine the cost of owning the ice cream maker per year. For some people, owning something costs nothing and in fact provides value, they find comfort in owning things, used or not. For some people, owning things is a burden, a drain, and owning something unused is painful.

An ice cream maker costs maybe $200? How would you feel if you disposed of the ice cream maker and then a week later realized you wanted it?

If you want to soften the blow, don’t throw things away: give them away to someone who will use them.

I hate owning things, owning an ice cream maker that I never use would weigh on me and I would much rather spend $200 on a new ice cream maker every 5 years (that I give away after a month) than have an unused ice cream maker for 5 years.

Keep it. Go up the list to the next thing that you don't use that you can throw away.

sometimes I see no dots on things that are cool and I have this innate urge to want to hold onto.

One example is a Picomotor piezo actuator. It's a really cool piece of technology. I want to believe so badly that I'll use it in a project someday.

but after four years and seeing zero dots on it, it's like having concrete evidence PROVING that I'm delusionally optimistic about how useful it is. I can't ignore the reality.

the Picomotor is my version of your ice cream maker. the lack of dots gives me the evidence I need to finally donate it to a better home