Every single thing that we own has a story behind it. Many of our items represent things that we had hoped to do but just never got around to. Rather than facing all of that reality head on, we just default to keeping things so we don’t have to deal with it. That’s where hiring a professional organizer comes into play. A big part of the service we provide as professional organizers is coaching people through the agonizing decisions about their stuff.

Last week while working with a client, we started going through a gigantic paper pile. With each piece of paper we talked about why she had it, what she was keeping it for, etc. We had just tossed about 50 papers because most of them she realized she was keeping for “xxx” reason but that she didn’t really think she would be using them for the reasons she thought.

Low and behold, paper number 51 was a paper whose big bold heading said Use It or Lose It. Such a perfect reinforcement for what we had been discussing all morning. If you aren’t using it, why are you keeping it?

Check out my book, The Truth About Clutter: Why Am I Holding on to This? for more in-depth insight into why we hold on to our stuff…and tips for letting go!