It could be costing you more to keep it!

By Megan Golightly | Read time: 2 min

The High Cost of Holding On: Rethinking the Value of Clutter

As a professional organizer and decluttering expert, I often encounter individuals overwhelmed by their possessions, struggling under the weight of clutter that has insidiously taken over their living spaces—and, by extension, their lives. A common thread in these situations is the perceived value of items, a psychological anchor that can make the process of decluttering seem insurmountable.

The Illusion of Value

Many of us fall into the trap of overestimating the value of our possessions, a phenomenon deeply rooted in cognitive biases. When items enter our home, we're not just acquiring physical objects but also attaching memories, emotions, and, crucially, a sense of financial investment to them. This perceived value can often be wildly out of step with the items' accurate market worth or utility in our current lives.

Take, for example, the treadmill gathering dust in your garage, bought with the best intentions, or the expensive set of dinnerware used once and then relegated to the top shelf. While these items might represent significant financial outlays, their value to your life now may be negligible—or even harmful when considering the space and mental energy they consume.

The Hidden Costs

The cost of keeping things isn't just measured in square footage. It's also quantified in the mental load carried by the owners of these items. Each unused, unloved item in your home represents a tiny mental tug, a reminder of money spent, and perhaps a twinge of guilt or a flicker of "someday." This accumulation of mental tugs can lead to decision paralysis, anxiety, and stress, significantly impacting your overall well-being.

Shifting Mindsets

Overcoming this attachment to possessions requires a fundamental shift in mindset, from seeing items as repositories of value to viewing them as transient objects in our lives. Here are four strategies to begin this shift:

1. Understand depreciation: Recognize that most items lose value when they enter your home. Unlike investments that can appreciate over time, consumer goods—especially those that go unused—almost always depreciate in both financial and functional terms.

2. Cost vs. value analysis: For each item you're holding onto due to its cost, ask yourself, "What value does this bring to my life now?" This question helps differentiate between the price paid and the current utility or joy an item provides.

3. The One-Year rule: If you haven't used an item in the past year, chances are you won't use it in the year ahead. This timeframe can be a practical guide for identifying things contributing more to clutter than your quality of life.

4. Visualize your ideal space: Often, we hold onto items out of habit or fear of loss. Visualizing your ideal living environment can help prioritize what truly deserves a place in your home. If an item doesn't fit this vision, it may be time to let it go.

Embracing Letting Go

Remember, decluttering isn't just about getting rid of things; it's about making space for what truly matters. It's progress over perfection. By reassessing the perceived value of our possessions, we can break free from the clutter that binds us, creating environments that reflect our current selves, not our past purchases. This journey isn't always easy, but the mental and physical space reclaimed can lead to a profound sense of liberation and renewal.

xo Meg