Over the years of decluttering my home and then trying to keep it from getting cluttered again, I have honed in on a feeling that I get when I have just the right amount of something. If you have too much of anything, even if it is something you love like jewelry, nothing becomes precious anymore and the joy has to be spread among a plethora of items.

If you think back to being a kid, can you remember having that one toy or stuffed animal that you absolutely adored? It may have been ragged from all the loving but no matter, it was your special toy. Now imagine your parents giving you ten more of that toy or a variation of it. Is the kid version of you ten times happier? No! Surely there was an initial jolt of excitement and it probably would have felt like the best day ever, but as the days went on, that one special toy would be lost among the others and the magic it held would dissipate. Same thing goes with our stuff in adulthood.

The goal that I have when it comes to my stuff is that I want to USE the majority of it. This seems obvious (of course I want to use the things I bought) but look around you- when was the last time you actually picked up a book from that bookshelf and read it? How many of those sweatshirts have been ignored since you usually grab your go-to worn-in oversized fav? Do you ever rewatch that Charlie’s Angels DVD in your living room or does it and the others simply represent a decade of your life that is long gone? Our homes are filled with stuff and we only use a certain percentage of it. For some of us, we use a very small percentage of it and the rest of the crap fills us with dread and anxiety and makes it a pain in the ass to try and clean and enjoy our homes. Why do we allow ourselves to live like this?

When I am having trouble parting with an unused item, I try to imagine it’s life for the past few years and then see if it has been happy. Then, I imagine what would happen if I donated it and someone bought it and brought it their home and actually used it. Then would that item feel happy? I imagine so. It feels good to use the things we’ve spent our money on and it feels shitty to see all the things that we spent money on yet never use. The more we keep those unused items around, the more it seems we accumulate. When you go through the painful experience of getting rid of unused items, you remember that pain the next time you are shopping and want to buy more crap that you know will lose it’s luster in no time at all and add to the clutter chaos covering our countertops at home.

What about items that you don’t seem to use exactly, but are useful or make you feel all the good feelings? Let’s take photos that you have on display for example. I actually have quite a few photos on my walls but I was intentional when picking what to display and thus have a kind of relationship with each photo. I purposefully framed a photo of my son on his second day of life in the hospital, sleeping peacefully on my husband’s chest. It took three days of various induction methods to finally get to meet that sweet boy and the following day was one of peace, intense joy and bucketfuls of relief. By framing that photo and having very few trinkets around it to distract me, I am forced to bring myself back to that moment and feel thankful all over again. Beside that photo is a photo of my daughter from when she was three years old, possibly my favorite age. She came up with the best outfits and in this photo she is wearing a floral crown that matches her light blue dress with layers of puffy tulle, her doggie leggings and bright pink galoshes. The outfit is just so her. I remember photographing her that day as she twirled and jumped on our deck, making wild and crazy faces and just embracing the moment as every three year old knows how to do. I may not use these photos the same way I use clothes and tools, but I do use them to remind myself of my values and to conjure up memories that I am determined to not lose sight of.

Why hold onto extra stuff ‘just in case’ when someone else could use it now? Of course, we want to keep those jumper cables in the truck of our cars, even if we only need them once every few years. Having a few pairs of scissors around can be quite convenient but hoarding a dozen pairs is a bit ridiculous. Keep your favorites and let the rest go. Same goes for extra sets of sheets (do you really need more than two pairs per bed?), craft supplies that will go bad before you make use of them, camping gear that you didn’t even bring with you the last time you went camping, and ugly mugs that were gifted to you but only seem to gather dust. Let it all go! You will relish the fact that you have some wiggle room around the items that you keep. You will find joy in using and loving those items that made the cut without the unused clutter muddling up the view. They will sparkle in their spotlight and it will make you want to declutter everything from your makeup to your garden planters. This is not a one and done exercise. This is an ongoing battle between you and your stuff. By building up your decluttering muscles, you will find that it becomes more and more obvious what stays, what goes and what never needs to be bought in the first place. You will make mistakes (I’m thinking of that forth cardigan I got last year that was never soft enough to compete with my three favorites and thus was donated six months later), but it will be easier to see those red flag items when everything else is prized and put to use. So as you go your home, keep this mantra in the forefront of your mind: use it or lose it, baby.

Which of your own items came to mind while you read this post? Why do you think you’ve held on to them despite not using them? Figuring out what your particular roadblocks are will help you find more things to let go of and will help you inch closer to a home that you love to spend time in.