Do you find yourself channeling a significant amount of time and effort to declutter your home and yet you still end up feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff? It's a mystery to you where it all comes from.
Maybe, you are doing it all wrong. Or, you could be trapped in this mindset: you are hoping you will use something again.
Apartment Therapy thinks that the notion is one of the biggest factors why people are having a hard time dealing with clutter in their life. Here is why and what you can do about it.
Hoping you will use something again makes you keep things just in case. Hope is a good thing - but if you attach it to things and objects around you, you are cooking a recipe for a clutter clutch.
Maybe you will come back to playing that piano that's been sitting in the corner again. Perhaps you will fit into your high school dresses again. Maybe you will finally get your workout started and take that gym equipment out its packaging after 6 months.
While it can be a scary thought to let go of certain possessions that you haven't really used in ages because of the real possibility of needing it or wanting it again some day, but it also isn't going to be the end of the world if you get rid of them now that all they really do is take up space and collect dust.
You can always borrow or get another one if you end up needing it (if that time ever comes). Isn't that better than crowding your place with stuff you haven't really touched in a long time? Stuff you hope you will use, but aren't really using now nor in the future?
The best way to manage that mindset of hoping to find a use for things is to declutter systematically and often. If you are having a hard time, then take hint from the answers you come up with when you ask yourself if you really need objects in your home. If the reasons you find are leaning to answers that are future-sounding such as "maybe" "could" "might", then maybe it is time to let go.
