Three Ways to Start Decluttering Sentimental Items
A Christmas ornament from your childhood, a toy your deceased grandma gave you when you were 7, an outfit your baby wore; sentimental items are arguably the hardest things to deal with when decluttering. Minimalism isn’t about getting rid of the things we love, rather, it’s about clearing out the things that we don’t, so there is room for things that are special to us. So, if you have bins and bins of sentimental items that are taking up precious space, that you rarely ever take out to use or look at, and are frankly weighing you down, then you may want to start weeding through them. Here are some simple ways to start making those hard decisions:
Ask yourself how you feel when you look at the item: is it meaningful to you specifically or do you feel obligated to keep for some reason? Do you actually feel negative feelings when you look at it? Consider only keeping the things that bring you joy and let the rest go.
Can you find a way to display everything that you keep? If it’s in a bin in the back of a closet or storage space, we may pull it out once a year, so how much enjoyment are we actually getting out of those memories? Can you frame it and hang it or put it out on a shelf? If not, maybe it’s not worth keeping.
If you are unsure about something, take a picture of it (as a way to keep the memory), and put it in a “maybe” box. Come back and look through the maybe box after a month or two have passed and see how you feel about it.
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