How to Declutter Without Regretting It Later

You open a cupboard to find one thing and three others fall out. You know you should sort it, and you even start. Then you pick up a cable, a jar or an old jacket and think: what if I need this one day? An hour later, most things are back where they were.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not lazy or sentimental. Several well-known quirks of the human mind make letting go hard. Knowing about them, and having a simple method, makes decluttering far easier.

Why letting go feels so hard

We value what we own

In a famous experiment published in 1990, the economists Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch and Richard Thaler gave some students coffee mugs. The students who had been given a mug asked for roughly twice as much money to sell it as other students were willing to pay for the same mug. Simply owning something made it seem more valuable. This is known as the endowment effect, and it applies to everything in your cupboards.

We feel losses more than gains

Research on decision-making has found that losses tend to feel bigger than equal gains. Giving something away registers as a loss, even when the gain, such as a clear shelf, is worth more to you.

We remember what we paid

“But it was expensive” is one of the most common reasons for keeping things. Economists call this the sunk cost problem: the money is spent whether you keep the item or not. Keeping something you don’t use doesn’t get the money back.

We fear regret

Most of all, we worry about the moment we need something we gave away. But research on regret by the psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Husted Medvec found that, over the long run, people tend to regret things they didn’t do more than things they did. And for most items, the feared moment never comes, or the item is easy to borrow or replace.

Keeping something you don’t use doesn’t get the money back.

Does clutter really affect how you feel?

Research suggests it can. In a 2010 study, Darby Saxbe and Rena Repetti asked 30 dual-income couples in Los Angeles to describe their homes. Women who used more words about clutter and unfinished projects showed patterns in their daily levels of the stress hormone cortisol that are linked to more chronic stress. Another study, by Catherine Roster, Joseph Ferrari and Peter Jurkat in 2016, found that people with more clutter at home reported lower satisfaction with their homes and less sense of “home” as a place of comfort.

These studies show links, not proof that clutter causes stress. But many people do report feeling calmer in a tidier space, and spending less time looking for things.

A calm, step-by-step method

1. Start small

Don’t try to do the whole house in a weekend. Choose one drawer, one shelf or one bag. A small, finished area gives you a quick sense of progress and shows you that nothing bad happens when things leave.

2. Start with the easy categories

Leave photographs, letters, gifts and inherited items until last. Start with things that carry little emotion: expired food and medicines, old paperwork you no longer need, duplicate kitchen tools, cables for devices you no longer own, and clothes that don’t fit.

3. Take everything out

Empty the whole drawer or shelf. Seeing everything together shows you how much you really have, for example nine pens that work and twelve that don’t.

4. Ask the useful questions

For each item, ask:

• Have I used it in the last year? Seasonal items count if you use them each season.
• Would I buy it again today, at today’s price?
• If I needed it, could I easily borrow or replace it?
• Do I keep it because I value it, or because I feel guilty?

5. Use a “maybe box”

For things you really can’t decide on, use a box. Seal it, write the date on it, and put it out of sight. If you haven’t opened it in three or six months, donate it without looking inside. The box removes the pressure of a final decision, and it usually shows how little you missed those things.

6. Keep the memory, not the object

For sentimental items, keep the best one or two, not all of them. Take photographs of things you want to remember but don’t need to keep, such as children’s artwork or old trophies.

7. Get things out of the house quickly

Bags of things to donate that sit in the hall often creep back into cupboards. Take them to a charity shop, recycling point or someone who needs them within a day or two. Check local recycling rules for electronics and batteries, which shouldn’t go in household rubbish.

Keeping it clear

• One in, one out: when something new comes in, something similar goes.
• Give everything a home. Clutter builds up when things have nowhere to go.
• Do a small reset often. Ten minutes a week is easier than a big sort twice a year.