When it comes to de-cluttering your home, one of the biggest things that gets in the way of people really cleaning house and getting organised is definitely sentimentality. You will know exactly what I’m talking about if you are one of those people who like to collect physical things to preserve memories. You attach feelings to objects which means that you are unable to throw them out, and things start to build and build until you have accumulated a museum of mess all around your home! Here is **how to overcome sentimentality to de-clutter your home. **
Put yourself in this hypothetical situation. You wake up in the middle of the night and your house is on fire, what items do you grab to save and get out of the blaze with you? If the cluttering item in question is not one of the chosen few that you would save, then you don’t have as much of an attachment to it as you think. Get rid!
To put it simply, you just aren’t that crazy about the way it looks! It might have been given to you by someone special, or it might remind you of a fun or meaningful trip that you once took, but at the end of the day, the memory is more beautiful than the item itself!
It isn’t an item that brings back good memories for you. Actually, if you really think about it, it tends to evoke more negative memories of a time long past, perhaps a gift from an ex, or something associated with your childhood that you don’t really want to look back on. Toss it!
There is absolutely nothing unique about it, and it doesn’t hold a special memory or meaning for you or your family. When you really face facts, it’s a table from IKEA that about two million other people have in their homes!
Are you reluctant to let go of something because in your head you are holding it to give to someone else when the time is right? Listen, if you haven’t given it them by now, then you’re never going to give it to them!
Are you keeping something big or ugly in your house because you feel a sense of guilt or responsibility? We all want to hold on to things that were special to our parents or other important figures, but at the end of the day, if it’s not adding benefit to your life right now, it’s just adding more clutter.
If it is something that is not on display in your home, then what it is doing is taking up valuable storage space? That is storage space that you could be using to clean up the rest of the clutter!
If it’s something that you have around the house, but have chipped and dropped so many times that it is now valueless, then deep down inside you know that you don’t really want it!