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CES 2025: The 7 Coolest Things I Saw at CES Unveiled

I saw a lot of tech at this year’s CES Unveiled. The event is filled with row after row of AI-powered, motorized, holographic, shape-shifting technology, and is only a fraction of the amount there is to see at CES in total.

While there were plenty of cool, interesting, wacky, and weird things on display, seven products in particular caught my eye. In fact, some of my favorites are not necessarily products you’d be able to pickup and buy. But I appreciate both the concepts behind some of these things, as well as where the tech could go in the future.

ColdSnap

This poor ColdSnap unit, with its “faulty pod” warning, was not the machine that served me ice cream.
Credit: Jake Peterson

I saw ColdSnap at least year’s CES, and it was equally fun both times I visited the booth. ColdSnap acts like a Keurig machine for ice cream: You use a single-serve pod—a particular flavor, of course—but instead of coffee, out comes ice cream.

Last year, I assumed ColdSnap’s deserts wouldn’t impress. An interesting concept, sure, but I imagined the single-serve design, in execution, would not be more compelling than buying a pint of ice cream from the store.

Truth be told, ColdSnap makes excellent ice cream. Last year, I got the bourbon flavor, and I don’t know if it was just the bourbon talking, but I really enjoyed it. (I made the same joke last time.) This year, I tried their coffee flavor, and I was impressed once again. Better yet, the rep tells me all their flavors are gluten free, and use certified gluten free oats. As someone with celiac disease, I appreciate that, and appreciate more being able to safely test taste food at a mega convention like CES. It almost takes the sting out of the $3,000 price tag.

LOOI

Credit: Jake Peterson

There were a number of robots to see at Unveiled. Many companies seem keen on not only making a robot, but one with an anthropomorphic face. Most of them don’t interest me all that much; some, in fact, creep me out.

However, LOOI caught my eye. It’s a robot with a WALL-E-like face, which in and of itself isn’t necessarily groundbreaking. But what I found particularly interesting is you don’t buy LOOI’s face: You only buy the robot’s body, and provide the face with your own smartphone.

Your iPhone or Android sticks to LOOI and, through the app, turns it into a robot you can interact with. LOOI responds to hand gestures, so you can “push” the bot back by moving your hand towards it. (This doesn’t always seem to work—or, at least, not under CES Unveiled’s indoor lights.) You can also talk to LOOI: The rep asked LOOI to introduce itself to me, and it did, complete with a virtual microphone to speak into.

Because LOOI operates from your smartphone’s display, it can display other things besides its face. It can show text when “talking” to you; graphics, like a digital microphone or even a cheeseburger it can “eat;” or a camera view if taking a selfie. I don’t think LOOI is necessarily practical, and I’m not sure what I’d actually do with one. But it’s a unique concept I certainly haven’t seen before.

E-SKIMO

Credit: Jake Peterson

If you’ve ever ridden an e-bike, you know how cool an experience it is. When you’re used to relying on just your own momentum to move a bike, the boost from an e-bike’s motor is really something else.

That’s how I imagine electric skis would be. E-SKIMO is working on just that: a motorized ski, that can offer a boost whether you’re skiing downhill or cross-country. Trying to move on skis across long stretches of flat land is always a low-point of any ski day, so I totally welcome motorized skis (or e-skis).

In addition to the motor, E-SKIMO has sensors built into the skis to collect data as you complete your runs. If you’re someone who likes to track their performance and look for ways to improve, that’s an enticing concept.

Concept is the key word here: The product E-SKIMO showed off at CES isn’t available commercially, and isn’t aimed at consumers; rather, the company is looking to sell the tech to brands to integrate into their own skis. I hope it works out, so I can look forward to power-assisted skiing in my future.

Electric Salt Spoon

Instructions and explanation on using the spoon, as well as the spoon itself.

Credit: Jake Peterson

This one drew a crowd, and for good reason: “Electric Salt Spoon,” developed by Kirin, claims to be able to make low sodium food taste salty. The spoon, according to Kirin, adds a “mild electrical current” through the food in your mouth, which supposedly stimulates Na+ ions that would otherwise be lost to your taste buds.

To use the spoon, you scoop up your food, then press the button to trigger the electricity flow. There are four intensity levels to choose from (Kirin recommends first-time users start with the lowest setting). Then, you hit the button, and eat. The light on the spoon will turn white while you’re eating, and the company advises you try to make each bite count—about half a second per bite.

I did not test the spoon, so I cannot personally attest to its powers. But it’s a wild idea: Can you save yourself some added salt by using an electric spoon?

LISSOME R1

Credit: Jake Peterson

I spent many years living in small apartments without dishwasher—and I hated it. I actively avoided cooking because I could not stand having to hand wash every plate, bowl, or utensil I used. That’s why LISSOME R1 piqued my interest. To be honest, I couldn’t care less about its “AI wash features,” or that it dries dishes in 15 minutes (even if that would be convenient). It’s a low-profile portable dish washer that I would have loved having in my small kitchens. I hope this one lives up to my personal hype.

Aurzen ZIP

Credit: Jake Peterson

Aurzen’s portable projector doesn’t have the highest resolution at 720p. It also only lasts 90 minutes, so it’s probably not excellent for most movie nights. However, its folding design is really cool: When fully folded up, it looks like a Game Boy Advance SP, which speaks to me directly. But as you unfold it, you’re able to customize how you want it to project. One orientation lets you project on the wall, while another lets you project on the ceiling.

I could live with the resolution on a product like this, actually. It’s so portable, that if the battery life could be extended just a bit, it could make for an excellent movie machine on the go. As it is now, it’s probably better for portable presentations, or movie and shows that are 90 minutes or less.

Bodyfriend

Credit: Jake Peterson

I’d be remiss not to mention the transformer massage chair. Bodyfriend was impossible to miss, since it looked like Bumblebee retired from fighting Decepticons to become a masseuse. Aside from moving around like a giant robot, it offers a slew of different zones for massages. I’m not sure I see catching on in the average household, but it was very fun to watch in action.

CES 2025: Govee’s New Pixel Light Will Remind You of a Lite Brite

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Today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Govee is debuting a series of new light products, and while previous endeavors like lamps and holiday lights have focused on function, today’s releases are all about fun. Govee has also leaned in hard to a retro theme, debuting a set of digital tablets that display pixelated images or gifs: They’re giving a real Lite Brite vibe.

The Pixel Light looks a lot like a gaming console, so much that I spent some time trying to figure out if that was a feature I could unlock. Instead, it is a large pixel display, and you can use Govee’s app to change what it displays.

While it’s not the touch screen I’d have liked for my 2025 Lite Brite fever dream, it does offer the same feel through the app, which does allow you to hand draw what you’d like to see on the screen using the DIY feature. You can select colors, shapes, and drawing tools, and when you’re done, you tap “apply,” and the image is sent to your display.

Credit: Amanda Blum

There are also lots of presets, from nature to sports to food. This is perhaps the best use of the tablet, because these images are well-refined already and there are many animated gifs you can use. You can display livestreams of information, from weather to sports scores to Bitcoin values. There are patterns that will move to any music you play, and some patterns play 8-bit music.

Now, if you’re looking at a wildly pixelated image alongside 8-bit music, and early Nintendo games don’t come to mind, you’re playing in a different technological bubble, because it is all I could think of. And while the console did come with static images of arcade games you could display, it didn’t have any animated gifs, and I thought that was a real miss. If this tablet showed Frogger or Super Mario Bros. or Donkey Kong incessantly, I’d let it play until it burned itself out.

You can upload an image of your own and have it sent, in wildly pixelated format, to the display. This wasn’t fantastic, if you ask me, but it was an interesting experiment.

And that is how pointillism works.
Credit: Amanda Blum

There is an AI engine you can ask to generate images for the tablet, and experiences will vary. For instance, I asked a number of times for Rainbow Brite or Super Mario Bros. (I was determined), and in both cases, the AI engine had no idea what I was talking about. But if you ask for a rainbow, you get one.

Credit: Amanda Blum

The last thing is that you can, actually, create an animated gif of your own. However, it’s unlikely you would from your phone, which is where my issues with the Pixel Light lie. All of the DIY and drawing tools are touch screen but are absurdly small. Too small to reasonably use the tip of your finger in drawing. It’s very clumsy, perhaps intentionally so (so you lean into the “fun” aspect), but I can’t imagine spending the time to create an animated gif because of the frustration with the touch screen size.

The Pixel Light comes in two sizes: 5.75 x 7” and 5.75x 10″. It comes with mounts for the wall or a shelf. It’s expected to be released for sale in early summer, with a target price of $100-$200.

CES 2025: Belkin Finally Made a Tripod for Its TikTok Creator Stand

Last year, frequent Apple collaborator Belkin released what might be the most over-the-top phone stand of all time, doubling as a cameraperson to track and record you as you move. The catch? It didn’t come with a tripod—until now.

The Belkin Auto-Tracking Stand Pro is a $150 motorized MagSafe phone charger that, in addition to providing standard 15W wireless charging, also works with Apple’s DockKit framework to rotate 360 degrees and tilt 90 degrees so that it can always keep you in frame. It’s intended for livestreamers and vloggers and can automatically follow you around as you present or act out a skit, making it easier to shoot while solo. (That said, you can also use it casually, say to make a FaceTime call).

But at just under nine inches tall, its usability out of the box was severely limited. It’s great for shooting from a desk, but if your videos require you to stand up or get further away from your phone’s microphones, it can be a bit trickier to place. That made it difficult to sell to its core influencer audience.

You could get around this using third-party solutions, since the stand comes with a standard tripod screw hole on the bottom, but now Belkin is offering a more official answer. Announced during this year’s CES, the Belkin Stage Creator Bundle adds on to the Auto-Tracking Stand Pro with a 5.6-foot tripod and a pair of wearable clip-on microphones. It also comes with a magnetic phone mount, so technically, you could still use the bundle without the tracking stand as well, assuming you don’t need your phone’s camera to follow you around.

Credit: Belkin

There’s still no word on Android support, although it’s probably not likely, given the tracking stand’s reliance on DockKit. Even if you put a MagSage sticker on your Android phone, it just won’t play well with its software.

Pricing is MIA for the moment, as are specs for those clip-on microphones, as the bundle’s release is a bit far out. (It’s currently set for May.) Still, even if it’ll have to compete with third-party alternatives (tripods and wireless mics aren’t exactly new), the bundle will go a long way towards making Belkin’s motorized stand feel like a more complete product.

Credit: Belkin

Also set for May is the Stage PowerGrip, which is similarly still waiting on a price. This is a bit more of a novelty product, as it’s a MagSafe power bank that also makes your phone look a bit more like an instant camera. Completing the aesthetic (yes, it does come in multiple colors) is a grip for lining up your shots as well as a button for taking them, but where a camera viewfinder would be, you’ll instead find a small screen depicting the bank’s remaining battery percentage. Like some other MagSafe Belkin power banks, you can also stand up the PowerGrip vertically to use it as a sort of phone kickstand as well, and it has a built-in USB-C cable for wired charging.

Credit: Belkin

Belkin does also have some CES 2025 products with pricing already announced. In addition to a new BoostCharge Compact USB-C wall charger and new BoostCharge Power Bank with 20,000 mAh of capacity and an integrated USB-C cable, the BoostCharge Pro Magnetic Wireless Charging Pad is a small wireless charging puck that should be great for travel. This small circular charger connects to the back of your phone using MagSafe (or a MagSafe style sticker) and is about as thick as a power bank, but takes up much less space overall. Because of its integrated kickstand, the idea is you can easily use it as your phone charger while on-the-go, propping your phone up overnight so it can work like an alarm clock. The only catch? You’ll still need to plug its 6.6-foot USB-C cable into some kind of power source. Luckily, you can get a power supply with the unit, or forgo one for a supply already have, so you at least have options there.

The BoostCharge Pro Magnetic Wireless Charging Pad will release in the U.S. in April and will run you $20 without a power supply and $30 with one. If you do want to provide your own power supply, the BoostCharge Compact USB-C charger will work for that, and will release in March for $30, coming with 45W of max capacity and one USB-C port. A 65W version of the BoostCharge Compact will also start selling in March for $40, while the BoostCharge Power Bank with 20,000 mAh capacity and an integrated cable hits shelves in April for $50. The USB-powered products should work with any product that charges via a compatible port, while the BoostCharge Pro Magnetic Wireless Charging Pad will work with any Qi2 compatible device.

CES 2025: Mammotion Just Released Two Mini Robot Lawnmowers

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Last week, in advance of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), I said, “I would love to see a fleet of small robot lawnmowers, perfect for tiny lawns, and for them to be sold at tiny prices.” Mammotion and I must be on the same wavelength because today at CES, they announced a miniature version of their two exceptional robot mowers: the LUBA and the YUKA. The idea of a mini robot lawnmower is brilliant— there are plenty of people with smaller lawns, and a smaller mower means accessibility and removal of unnecessary labor without having to stow or pay for a big machine.

I found myself thinking a lot about the Switchbot K10+, a mini robot vacuum that I am a huge fan of. The charm of the K10+ isn’t that it’s for smaller spaces—it actually handles a whole house better than most—but that the diminutive size allows it to fit into spaces bigger robots can’t, and get a tighter radius around objects. The Luba and Yuka Mini should do the same. They can access lawns through smaller pathways, and navigate around obstacles like planters and lawn lights with more ease. They won’t tear up your lawn when making a turn, since their wheels should be smaller and the robot should be lighter.

The Mammotion Luba 2 was the first robot lawnmower I tested, and I assumed all other mowers would live up to it, but I was sadly mistaken. Despite testing many mowers over last summer, it wasn’t even close. The Luba is highly competent, navigating any terrain without blinking, reliably starting and returning to the base when it should and sticking to the areas it is plotted to.

The Yuka came at the end of the summer, and it is akin to a little sister to the Luba. A bit smaller, more agile, and with a hopper to automatically collect and then dump leaves, trimmings, or debris where you want it to. The Yuka can handle more mowing areas than the Luba, but the Luba is unperturbed by any landscaping you throw at it; it easily traverses a large rock wash in my neighbor’s lawn.

The Luba mini will weigh just 33 lbs., which is dramatically lighter than the original; the Yuka mini clocks in at 22 lbs.

One of the key things that sets robot lawnmowers apart from one another is how easy they are to set up. The Mammotion mowers are exceptional because you simply walk them around your yard using the remote control on your phone app, and once they have the area mapped, they navigate the interior of the space flawlessly. The AI used in this auto mapping will be present on the minis.

The Luba mini starts at $1,499, and the Yuka mini starts at $799; both are available for pre-order on the Mammotion website now and are expected to ship before April.

CES 2025: This New Robot Vacuum Has an Arm That Picks Stuff Up

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Over the past week, I’ve gotten a sneak peek at tons of smart tech being released at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). But the only tech that made me jump up and clap in excitement was the Roborock Saros Z70: specifically, the moment when the top of the Z70 opened up and a long robotic arm emerged. This arm can gently pick up a shoe, sock, or toy in the robot’s path, and then gracefully deposit it in a location of your choosing.

For the past 18 months, I have not been coy about how much I like Roborock robot vacuums and mops, if you choose the top of the line models like the S8 MaxV Ultra and the QRevo MaxV or QRevo Curv. Among the reason for my devotion: Roborocks are more autonomous than other robot vacuum cleaners—they don’t get clogged or lost or stranded as often as other brands. Also, they seem to get the floor cleaner.

Yes, Roborock has a lot of models, but the company is aiming to streamline the confusion a little bit with a brand-new naming convention: Saros. Roborock has already released two robots under this new naming convention—the Saros 10 and 10R—but the Z70 will be the flagship.

The arm (officially called the OmniGrip) will be able to pick up six or so different items at a time, from socks to toys, and then, depending on what the AI identifies the object as, will drop it in a pre-designated spot. While it already recognizes 108 objects, the open-source AI model will let users identify and name 50 additional objects. In other words, the Roborock can now pick up after your family. You can ask the Saros where it last saw your kid’s missing sneaker.

If the idea of a robot arm emerging from your vacuum cleaner freaks you out, it won’t work until you set it up. One of the nice aspects about the arm is that future improvements to the arm are mere software updates. I asked if the arm would be able to help free the robot from a stuck spot, like it would on an excavator; while it can’t currently, future updates might make that possible.

As exciting as that is, it’s not the only upgrade in the Z70. Every brand I spoke to this week insisted that their vacuum would have “the highest suction power in the industry” but Roborock is going to win that battle, with 22,000Pa. To put it in perspective, plenty of robots I tested in the last year did an admirable job at less than 10,000Pa. There’s a question to be asked about how much we gain from this continued escalation of suction power—does it actually help debris, particularly large debris, move through the rollers so it will not get stuck?

The Z70 leverages the technology that we saw in the QRevo Curv, where the chassis can lift its front end to surmount obstacles like cords and rolled rug ends, but it will now use that same tech to exert more pressure on the robot’s back end, where the spinning mop brushes are located. That pressure is what has been missing from any robot vacuums released so far, and I, for one, could not be more excited. This could mean finally getting into depressions on tile, grout lines or getting rid of general griminess.

With Saros, Roborock is making a deliberate move away from LiDAR, which has been a navigation standard for the last year or two. LiDAR uses light to measure distance, but requires a “tower” on top of the robot, which is why most robots you see these days have a circular “button” on top of the machine to house the LiDAR. Roborock is moving towards AI-assisted cameras to navigate—specifically, the Starsight Autonomous System 2.0. The Saros is equipped with cameras on the robot and the OmniGrip, and those cameras measure the distance between where the robot is and the space in front of it, both vertical and horizontal. LiDAR “guesses” the distance, so it is less accurate. This new navigation includes Vertibeam, a lateral obstacle avoidance so the robot can vacuum around obstacles like power cords.

The Saros Z70 is also very thin, a smidge over three inches tall, so it will slide under your furniture, and includes all the features I love from previous Roborocks: hefty water tanks on the dock, a place for cleaning fluid in the dock, and very fast-charging (only 2.5 hours for a full charge). In news I’m less enthused about, Rocky, the on-board voice assistant, will continue to be present. I don’t find Rocky to be all that evolved yet, and he tends to respond to random phrases from my TV a lot, while not listening to me at all.

The Saros Z70 is expected to be released in the first half of 2025; there’s no pricing information yet.

This Free Fill-in-the-Bubble Calendar Makes Tracking My Workouts so Satisfying

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The new year is a great time for nerds like me. If you’re a sucker for the joy of a new training journal, the fresh promise of a program you’ll check off one day at a time, or even (admit it) the kid who really loved filling in bubbles with a number two pencil, you’ll enjoy this bubble-style calendar that a generous Redditor posts each year.

Here is the 2025 version, available in two sizes, and with the week beginning with either Sunday or Monday, according to your preference. The user who posts it every year goes by u/Propelissa, so check their profile next January when you’ve filled up this one.

The two sizes are 8.5″x 11″, best for printing on a standard letter-sized American printer, and 8″ x 10″, best for submitting as a “photo” to any photo printing service.

How to use the bubble calendar

Honestly, it’s just a sheet of paper with circles on it, so you can use it any way you like. But it was inspired by this poster, apparently issued by Saucony and Fleet Feet in 2019, which invited you to fill in one of the bubbles every time you went for a run.

If you print the 8″ x 10″ version through a photo service, you’ll probably want to use a Sharpie to fill in the bubbles. But if you have access to a regular paper printer, you’ll get a grade-school thrill out of being able to fill in the bubbles with a nice Ticonderoga pencil.

Last year, I decided to use the bubble calendar to track my cardio. (It’s easy for me to keep up with strength training, less so with cardio.) If I did a bike ride, a run, or any other kind of purposeful cardio workout, I filled in that day’s bubble. If I went for a walk, I drew an X in the bubble to give myself partial credit. Toward the beginning of the year, most of my cardio workouts were power zone bike workouts; in the summer and fall, they were usually runs.

How you use the calendar is up to you. You could log any type of workout. You could use different colors for different types or lengths of workout. Or you could use the calendar to track how often you floss your teeth, or eat your vegetables, or make it to bed on time. Go ahead, it’s all yours.

Here’s Which Cancers Are Linked to Alcohol, and How Much Drinking Increases Your Risk

Most people have no idea that alcohol is known to contribute to cancer, but it’s been common knowledge among doctors and cancer researchers for years. Today, the Surgeon General released a report with statistics and recommendations to reduce the risk of cancer from drinking. Here’s what you need to know.

Yes, alcohol is widely agreed to be a cause of cancer

It is rare that scientists will come right out and say that something “causes” cancer (versus, say, “increases the risk of”), but in the case of alcohol, you won’t find much shyness about it. Words like “cause” and “causal” occur 49 times in the new report.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the same group that called aspartame “possibly” carcinogenic (group 2B) and red meat “probably” carcinogenic (group 2A), has placed alcoholic beverages in group 1, the straight-up carcinogens, alongside cigarettes and ionizing radiation. They say: “The relationship between alcohol consumption and cancer risk has been known since the beginning of the 20th century.”

The National Cancer Institute’s fact sheet on alcohol states that “there is a strong scientific consensus that alcohol drinking can cause several types of cancer.” They note that alcohol’s metabolic byproducts are carcinogens themselves, that alcohol increases oxidation, that alcohol can increase blood levels of estrogen, which is linked to breast cancer, and that alcohol interferes with our ability to absorb vitamins and nutrients that protect against cancer.

The full picture of exactly how alcohol causes each type of cancer is not fully understood, but the link is clear enough that the Surgeon General estimates there are 100,000 cases of alcohol-linked cancers in the United States each year, including 20,000 deaths. That’s more than the 13,500 alcohol-associated crash fatalities each year.

Seven cancers are linked to alcohol

There are seven types of cancers widely understood to be linked to alcohol:

Breast
Colorectum
Esophagus
Liver
Mouth
Throat
Larynx (voice box)

In the case of breast cancer, over 16% of breast cancers are estimated to be caused by alcohol consumption. For all of these cancers, the risk increases with the amount you regularly drink.

How much alcohol does it take to raise your risk of cancer?

There’s no threshold to the risk, no specific number that you can say “if I drink less than this, I’ll be fine.” That said, this summary of evidence from the University of Florida highlights that:

Light drinking (usually defined as one drink per day, or a little more) increases the risk of esophageal cancer by 160% and breast cancer by 104%
Moderate drinking (usually defined as around two drinks per day) increases the risk of mouth cancer by 180%, throat cancer by 140%, colorectal cancer by 120%, and breast cancer by 123%.
Heavy drinking (usually defined as around 3.5 drinks per day) increases the risk of mouth cancer by 500%, throat cancer by 260%, esophageal cancer by 500%, certain types of liver cancer by 200%, colorectal cancer by 150%, and breast cancer by 160%.

If you recall hearing that light drinking could be good for you, that isn’t necessarily at odds with these results. There is research that has found a reduced risk of heart disease with light drinking, which is why it’s included in the Mediterranean diet. But remember that that diet was based on what people in certain Mediterranean populations ate and drank, and was adopted as a package deal, rather than assembled out of habits that we know for sure are healthy.

The advice from the Surgeon General, and from other public health organizations, is that if you already drink, you might want to reduce your drinking. And if you don’t already drink, you probably shouldn’t start. If you think you may be drinking too much, the CDC has a tool to assess your drinking habits and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has a helpline to find out more about treatment.

Use This Checklist to Declutter for the New Year

Decluttering is its own kind of an art form. You have to do it consistently enough that it becomes a habit, and you’ll have greater success if you subscribe to a particular decluttering approach or technique that helps you constantly evaluate the things you have, determine whether you need to hold onto them, and if so, where you’ll put them.

Before you can get organized for the long term, though, you need a place to start. I recommend starting off the new year by giving your whole home a once-over using the decluttering checklist below.

Your New Year decluttering checklist

True decluttering is a process that takes place over weeks or months. You need to build a habit of getting rid of what no longer serves you and constantly organizing what you choose to keep. But before any of that happens, you may be faced with an overabundance of junk that makes it difficult to know where to start.

It’s worth setting aside some time to do a broad sweep, focusing on some key areas. As you begin, toss or donate anything in these categories:

Get rid of anything defective, malfunctioning, or outdated. This includes broken things you swore you’d get around to fixing as well as odds and ends like random device chargers and cords clogging the junk drawer. If you haven’t used that old MacBook charger since 2011, you probably won’t need it again.
Get rid of any duplicates. Consider redundant kitchen utensils, that tote bag stuffed with tote bags, or anything else that can be consolidated.
Toss anything expired, from spices to makeup to gift cards, and trust that if you ever need that exact thing again, you can get a fresh one.
Donate any clothing or linens you haven’t worn or used in recent memory.
Toss any old paperwork or documents you find, from holiday cards to years-old bank statements. Take pictures of anything essential first, or store them in your filing cabinet. (You still keep a physical filing cabinet, right? You should.)
Throw out or donate anything mismatched, like a mug that’s missing its saucer or a sock missing a mate. You might find it later, but it’s probably not worth keeping around until you do.
Donate any single-purpose items you don’t use, like art supplies, sporting goods, or kitchen tools.

These all might seem like common sense, but this is also the kind of stuff we all tend to keep, and it’s what makes up the clutter in our homes.

Next, find your personal decluttering method

A lot of decluttering techniques encourage easing into the process, debating over what you need and whether it sparks joy. I don’t necessarily believe that’s helpful, since it gives you a little too much room to make excuses about why you “need” to hold onto something you don’t actually need, and I am especially against it if you’ve made decluttering your new year’s resolution.

There is no better time than the start of a new year to commit to making quick, objective decisions about what stays and what goes. Capitalize on those “new year, new you” vibes by being decisive and freeing yourself from what no longer serves you.

That said, after your initial sweep, you need to turn decluttering into a habit, and the easiest way is to find a method that works for you. In honor of the new year, I advocate establishing a “one in, one out” mindset. Resolve that for everything you buy, you’ll throw out one (or more) similar items.

I had great luck last year adopting this philosophy with my wardrobe: When I wanted something new, I listed its corresponding peer in my existing collection for sale, then only allowed myself to buy the new thing once the old one had sold (as a bonus, this was like getting a discount on the new item too). Doing this kept me from collecting an overabundance of sweaters, handbags, and shoes, kept my look fresh, and allowed me to share some cherished but no longer wanted pieces with others. You don’t have to sell the things you get rid of, but do commit to not rebuying things you already have. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself right back where you started this time next year.

These Tiered Shelves Helped Me Finally Get Organized

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I own way too much stuff, but I’m always working on decluttering and streamlining what I have. Ironically, my quest to organize the items I do decide to keep often entails buying something new—and one recent purchase has been truly beneficial. It’s time to talk about how tiered storage has changed my organizing life.

How I use tiered storage to organize everything

I’ve previous written about how much I love acrylic organizers for storing stuff like makeup, since they keep all the tiny objects in order and easy to reach. I’ve ordered so many of them, my shopping apps have picked up on my proclivities, and a few weeks ago, one of them offered up something different: tiered, acrylic mini-shelving units.

The algorithm always knows what I want, even before I do, and it wasn’t wrong this time. I dutifully added to cart. When the little units came, I set about reorganizing my perfume shelf to test them out. I ended up loving the result—and buying more. Now, I can see everything in my cabinet without taking anything out, and reach in without knocking anything over.

Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

What I really like about tiered storage shelves—and why I believe you should add some of your own—is that they helps me follow the Organizational Triangle rules I’m always writing about. Specifically, the rules advise that all similar items must be stored together, and everything must have a place. Typically that means using containers to group items into categories.

That works fine in some cases, but for oft-used but varied things like makeup, perfume, and accessories, I like to be able to see what I have while I’m getting ready. Yanking open a storage container and rifling through it is less than ideal. Tiered storage not only allows me to keep everything out on a shelf and grouped together, but makes them easy to see and access.

Prior to picking these little stacked shelves up, I had a lot of perfumes lined up precariously on small boxes to create my own tiered effect. It wasn’t exactly a stable setup, and it resulted in me breaking a beloved, nowhere-near-empty bottle of Glossier You. (RIP.) These sturdier, use-specific shelves will prevent me from making that mistake again.

My favorite tiered storage ideas

I used my first round of tiered organizers to manage the delicate glass bottles of my perfume collection, but there are a lot of uses you can put these to. They’re great for organizing spices in a cabinet, displaying sentimental items or collections of knick-knacks, managing office supplies littering a desk, or even storing condiments in the fridge. Anything that you have an abundance of and don’t want to rifle through when you only need to grab one is a candidate for tiered storage. Because they make use of otherwise-wasted vertical space, these shelves provide better organization in a relatively small footprint, so feel free to get creative.

Another advantage of tiered shelving is that it’s generally not very expensive. Consider this three-tiered riser stand for $6.99:

HENABLE Large Acrylic Display Risers

You can get one with four tiers for $12.99. If you want something more stylish than clear acrylic, you have loads of options:

Round, black, circular platforms arranged in a tiered circle with storage space for larger items in the middle ($16.90)
A wooden, four-tiered stand that would look perfect in a kitchen ($16.99)
A decorative, artistic stand with three tiered platforms ($14.99)
A clear and black acrylic stand with circular levels to add some dimension (two for $22.99)

Whatever you choose, you’ll definitely appreciate being able to actually see (and use) al the stuff you’ve bought to put on them.