The worst part of declutter aside from the hard decisions you have to make and time it takes is how much guilt comes with getting rid of stuff. Unless you’re some kind of super human, going through things you’ve owned for years makes you second guess everything. Maybe you really do need that extra pot or maybe your daughter really will want to see your prom dress in person one day. Let’s dig deep and dive into how to declutter without feeling guilty.
Related article: Minimalist With 4 Kids; A List of Every Toy We Kept!
Sentimental Items
First thing’s first, sentimental items.
I am one of those people that assign sentimental value to everything. It’s a curse, but I’m slowly getting better.
The truth is, there are sentimental valuables and sentimental clutter.
Sometimes, we use sentimental value as an excuse to stay stuck.
You can’t dig up the energy right now to go through that box of miscellaneous kids clothes you haven’t looked at in years, so you decide it’s got happy memories attached to it and you keep it.
Instead of stressing over getting rid of your most personal momentos, I want you to give yourself permission to keep some of them.
You don’t have to Marie Kondo every single thing in your home.
You can instead, give yourself permission to keep a loved ones clothes or something they wrote on, even if it would make no sense to someone else.
Create a memory box of your favorites and pack away the rest – within reason.
Don’t go getting rid of your grandma’s old letters or shirts just because some book told you to.
When it comes to things like dishes and plates, I want you to give yourself permission to use them and to accept if they break.
Would a loved one that passed things on to you want you to be burdneed with those possessions forever?
Or would they want you to see and enjoy them while you’re still here?
I am using my Pappap’s cedar chests even though I know that the liklihood of them getting damaged with five kids is pretty good.
But it makes me smile to look at them and they make me think of him.
He would prefer that over me hiding them in the garage where they might be safe from my kids, but might instead get ruined by something else.
Save the most personal sentimental items somewhere safe, use the rest, and part with what’s left.
Kids’ Art Work
This definitely falls under the sentimental category bu deserves it’s own section because it is SO hard to watch our kids grow up.
You can still remember the look on their little face when hey handed you that picture they made or when they traced their hand and turned it into a turkey.
We have five kids and one of them is obsessed with making art. This forced me to set some boundaries.
Each of our kids has their own tote that I keep their sentimental items in like papers from when they were born and any art that they make. For big things like Lego structures they make when they get older, I take a picture.
They can keep it forever that way and it still fits in their tote in a photo book.
How to Declutter Things I Spent Good Money On
I wanted this awesome Youtube video from the Minimal Mom a while ago where she says to pull out your phone and bring up your banking app while you’re decluttering.
Basically her point is whether you keep that item or not, the money isn’t going back into your bank account.
For a few things, like if you have an extra crockpot or Vitamix or something someone else may find value in, you can sell them item for pennies on the dollar of what you paid.
For most things though, you’re going to have to bite the bullet and donate the item OR accept that it’s something you have to continue to manage.
That thing is taking up space in your house. Can you convince yourself to use it?
In the case of something expensive like the Vitamix or other appliance, I say give yourself one trial run.
Buy some frozen fruit if you don’t have any on hand and put that sucker on the counter.
Give yourself a week. If you don’t use it in that amount of time when all conditions are optimal – meaning you have the ingredients and the access to it – then you will almost definitely never use it.
Now is when you decide how to get rid of it. Do you have a family member you can gift it to that will actually enjoy it?
Otherwise, thrift stores like Salvation Army usually take donations on certain days, or if you’re donating something big like a kitchen appliance or a large piece of furniture, they may even send a truck to your home to take your donations for free.
They’ll often take a bunch of small items for you if they’re there already.
The point is to not let your past mistakes take up valuable space in your home.
You deserve to reclaim your home and make it a place where you feel comfortable and at peace.
Not staring at something you spent way too much money on that makes you feel guilty every time you look at it.
While decluttering may make you feel guilty while you’re in the moment, staring at something you should have never purchased elicits feelings of guilt every singly time you see it.
Why keep it? That’s self-sabotage and a mini form of torture.
If you have enough stuff in good condition to make it worth it, have a yard sale or garage sale. Take photos of larger items and post them to Facebook marketplace, but give yourself a time limit. If it doesn’t sell in a week, donate it.
You can make real progress in a small amount of time and help ease the guilt by making a small amount of money back from those otherwise waste of money purchases.
Toss it, donate it, sell it, and let’s move on!
Dealing with small spaces that feel cluttered no matter what you do? Read this article about how to make storage space where there is none in a small home.
Benefits of Decluttering
Last thing, I’m a psychology nerd, so if you stuck around this long, don’t you dare leave me now.
Let me convince you that you shouldn’t just declutter because your clutter gives you guilty feelings, let me explain why you NEED to declutter.
This article from Psychology Today explains that when you have a cluttered living space, you are more irritable and far less productive than you would be in a tidy, organized, minimalist home.
This article cites a study done by the University of Connecticut that found that clutter actually contributes to stress, negative emotions, and anxiety.
Now none of this is news to you.
You already know how crappy clutter feels.
You know the decluttering guilt that comes with just thinking about parting with unwanted stuff.
But do you know how amazing decluttering feels?
The truth is, life is short.
We can spend it letting clutter take up too much space in our homes and our minds, or we can have a clutter-free home (or almost) that gives us the mental space at the end of the day to appreciate what’s going right in our lives.
I think a cluttered home is like an emotional emergency.
You have too little time with your family as it is. Wouldn’t it be great to have less stuff to manage and to redirect that time to playing with your kids or hanging out with your spouse on the couch at the end of a long day?
Sure you can play with your kids in a cluttered home, but your mind will always be somewhere else.
You should be doing the dishes that piled up because you have way too many that you can dirty before washing them.
You should be putting away these toys or decluttering them before you sit down to hang out with your kids or your husband.
We see cleaning as a priority and the fun stuff as something we only get to do when we earn it after checking things off of our to-do list.
When we fall out of step and do the fun things, we feel a sense of guilt.
The real point to life though, is to use every bit of time that we can enjoying our loved ones because we never know how long we actually have.
Yes, this is super deep for an article on decluttering, but it all comes back to how having so much stuff impacts your daily life.
Instead of letting that happen for one more day, take a deep breath, commit to starting a decluttering journey today that ends with less clutter in a couple of months and maybe even a little extra cash in your pocket.
Then, without decluttering a single thing, go hug your spouse and sit down and read a book to your kids if you have them, call a friend or family member, and do something that you’ll have so much more time to do when the excess stuff is a distant memory.
You’ll be glad you did.
