Do you know what sentimental clutter is? And even more important, do you know what the best ways are to get rid of sentimental clutter? This article is for those who find it hard to let go of their stuff.
Decluttering sentimental items is not always the easiest task, and because of this, we want to give you some tips that we hope will help you and make the whole process smoother. These items are usually things that have an emotional value, such as gifts or items that you have gotten on your trips.
But sentimental clutter, even if it might be nice at the beginning, doesn’t mean it will stay like that forever. When these items occupy too much room, stop serving you, or trigger unpleasant memories, you know it’s time to let them go.
Read on and learn the best tips that will definitely help you get rid of sentimental clutter.
1. Decide on a time frame
We get it. You want to get rid of sentimental clutter, but setting a time frame that will allow you to do that in an organized manner will help you more than you can imagine. Believe it or not, decluttering can burn you out, and this is the least you want.
Sorting through items, especially those that have sentimental value, can easily become overwhelming, and because of this, we suggest you take 2-3 hours at a time to do this activity.
Try to be as serious as you can about respecting this timeframe because it can truly make your job easier. If you know that you will get sentimental while doing this, you can ask a relative or a friend to help you keep track of time.
If you find it hard to start decluttering, we are here to tell you that procrastination will only make things even more complicated. So, the best approach you can have is a straightforward one. Just start decluttering, and in this way, you know that the job has already begun, so you can move on.
2. Get rid of sentimental clutter: Sorting, sorting, sorting
This is an essential step when you want to get rid of sentimental clutter. Without sorting, the decluttering process will be far more complicated. Which means it will take longer than needed while also having a higher chance of being inefficient.
But if you want to sort things out in a proper way, we advise you to have a strategy. If you don’t have one, we want to share one of the most efficient strategies we know with you.
Clear out, categorize, cut out, and contain or keep, donate, trash, and sell. Make four boxes and put these labels on them. You can use the ones from the first category or the ones from the second. Whatever suits your needs the best. If your items are too large to fit in a box, you can use a stick note.
Try to ask you some questions when sorting the items. First of all, decide if you would buy the item at full price. After that, ask yourself: if the time was given to you as a gift from a person you don’t really like, would you still keep it? And last but not least, is this item making you feel happy?
After you have answered all of these questions, you can decide what time belongs to which box, and in this way, you will sort them in no time. Easy, right?
3. Don’t fall for “gift guilt”
This is a trap many people fall into when they need to get rid of sentimental clutter. Yes, you’ve received that pillow as a gift, but you don’t like it because it is impractical and also not the most beautiful pillow. Considering these things, you can throw it away or sell it. There is no need to keep it in your home forever to catch dust.
If you’ve received an item as a gift, you are not bound to keep it forever because you don’t want to offend the person who gifted it to you. This is how many folks end up with a closet full of items that they never use. And the number of those gifts grows from birthday to birthday and from Christmas to Christmas.
So, look through all of the gifts that you are still keeping and see if you need all of them. You will be surprised.
4. Ditching an item doesn’t mean ditching the memory
This is something incredibly important to remember when you want to get rid of sentimental clutter. It is easy to be led by your emotions, and by doing this, you end up hesitating about ditching some useless items.
We know it may be extremely hard for you to say goodbye to some of your stuff, but sometimes this is the right choice. And if you have beautiful memories about some items that are now old and dusty, you need to remember that the memory will live on no matter what.
You can clean the items that are dear to you and take a few pictures of them, which you can look at later. Also, if they are decorative items or you believe that they can be of use to someone else, you can try to gift them to someone dear to you.
In this way, they will get a new life and will not stay unused and without a purpose behind the closed doors of your closet.
5. Digitizing can make a huge difference
If you have boxes full of old pictures, documents, or love letters, the easiest thing you can do is try the modern approach. You can still have all of this stuff without it occupying precious physical space or getting full of dust.
Digitizing all of them is the smartest move you can make. In this way, you can keep them on the hard disk of your PC, and you will be able to access them at any time. What can be better than this?
If you want to do this in order to get rid of sentimental clutter, then you will need a scanner. You can easily purchase it on Amazon. After this, buy an external hard drive, and you are good to go.
6. Start small
One of the most important things you should remember when you want to get rid of sentimental clutter is to start small. By this, we mean that you should stick with the items that mean little to you. We all have some things that we really love, and some other stuff we keep just because it happened.
Let’s say that you have a towel collection that you keep inside your bathroom. Probably, those towels don’t mean that much to you. You can start with them.
Doing this gradually will prepare you for the time you will need to let go of items that truly mean something to you. Starting small is always the best way to begin. You will deal so much better with everything after this preparation.
If you feel like you need some boxes to help you organize all of your stuff and get rid of sentimental clutter, you can try this set from Amazon: Homsorout Storage Bins
You should also read: 9 Effective Steps to Having a Moth-Free Wardrobe
