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Do you find yourself holding onto things even though you don’t use them regularly? The kind of thing you might reach for to use one day, or you might not. It’s what makes throwing them away seem like a bad idea.
Of course, what I’m talking about is not using your trash can for things that are genuinely trash. It’s about keeping things in a “just in case” pile for an emergency or future convenience that may never happen.
While this sounds like a smart plan on the surface, once you read the article, I think you’ll see the full picture. You’ll see that, often, through small inconveniences, keeping all these “just in case” items is a net negative.
It’s only a rare case that these items will ever save the day, and the cost of all that clutter is very high. I’m not saying never keep anything in this category, but think it through. My examples should maybe help you realize you’ve been doing this unthinkingly.
It’s time to embrace a new mindset— one that isn’t afraid of letting go. And that trusts that when truly needed, these items of relative small value can always be reacquired.
The hassle of storing them
Think about all the “just in case” items you’ve kept over the years. It could include leftover paint, screws, and instruction manuals from old furniture.
The sheer volume of these things, even if individually small, adds up. With “just in case” items, you basically have more stuff that will be in your way if you need to get to something else.
Sometimes, I keep boxes from online shipments that I think might be useful, but they just take up more space in my garage until I eventually throw them away.
Forgetting where you put them
This one hits home for me. I like organization, but I’m not great at keeping track of everything long-term. And so, I sometimes put something away that I think seems logical, only to forget instantly where it was placed.
When I need it, it can take me 15 to 20 minutes to find it. When you have lots of “just in case” items like this, it’s hard to remember where you put them because, by default, they go in non-obvious spots.
Time spent sorting and organizing
There is a certain amount of stuff that most of us can manage without any real record-keeping or effort— which is a good thing.
But the more you keep for “just in case” scenarios, the more intentional you must be to keep your systems organized. That’s added time and energy that could be used elsewhere.
This is especially true for seasonal items like snow shovels and Christmas decorations.
It’s convenient to keep them, of course, but you have to put them away neatly to save time finding them. And you can’t put them just anywhere; they go to the back of the storage space, so the things you use more frequently are still easily accessible.
The mental clutter of remembering
If it’s not clear already, keeping lots of “just in case” items carries the real cost of having to remember where you placed them. And this can be a real mental burden.
One of the nicest parts of getting rid of everything you no longer use is that you can more easily remember where the things you do use are. And, better yet, you don’t have to think about them any longer because you know exactly where they’re located.
This frees you up to focus on other, more important things, like remembering something your spouse said earlier in the day or reflecting on an important thought you have.
Re-purchasing an item when you can’t find it
The irony of keeping things for some future emergency is that it rarely works out the way you had planned.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve held onto something I thought might be helpful only to be unable to find it when the time came. Somehow I put it away so well I can’t even find it. And so I end up re-buying what I thought I was saving on in the first place.
It’s debatable whether keeping things for later use is worth it. There’s an added cost of clutter, and the odds of finding it in pristine condition are not very high unless you’re organized.
Not being able to find other things easily
As we’ve hinted at throughout this piece, the more “just in case” items you have, the more stuff you have to keep track of.
And the more stuff you have to keep track of, the harder it is, and the more time it takes to find the other things you use more frequently. When you organize a storage room, for example, you should try putting the things you use infrequently in the back and the things you use more often in the front. But when you have too much stuff, it becomes hard to manage the whole system.
Conclusion
If you’re like me, there are probably some areas of your house that could use a thorough going-through and decluttering session. These are the spaces in our homes that are not seen by guests but begin to fill up with things we put away for another day.
Many of these items are important and valuable, but many are a different category entirely. They’re things we hold onto just in case we need them.
The purpose of this post is to bring to light the real but often hidden costs of holding onto these things. I encourage you to look around your home and consider the tradeoff. I suspect you’ll find it’s better to let go of many of these just-in-case items and trust that, if needed, you’ll be able to find something similar on short notice.
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