First of all, no. Absolutely not.
But most of us aren't really choosing to keep things. We're just never choosing to let them go. Not because those things are loved or useful or even wanted, but because getting rid of something feels like a decision, and decisions take energy. So things pile up. Drawers fill. Storage units get rented. And at some point, the stuff you own starts to feel like a responsibility you didn't sign up for.
Decluttering doesn't mean getting down to some spare, minimal version of your home. It means being honest about your stuff, and clearing out what's no longer earning its place.
Not everything in your home belongs in the same category. When I work with clients, it helps to sort belongings into three loose buckets.
Keep.
Things you use regularly, or that genuinely mean something. Art you love. The coffee maker you use every single morning. The box of keepsakes from your wedding. For us, it's a piece of petrified wood my grandfather found as a teenager, which now has a place of prominence in our house. (That story is here.) These things don't need to justify themselves. They're already doing their job.
Store.
Things you don't reach for every day, but that genuinely earn their space. The camping gear you use a few times a year. A spare part that would be expensive or hard to replace. Seasonal things that rotate in and out. The key word is genuinely. Store isn't a default category for things you haven't gotten around to yet.
Question.
Everything else. The things you're keeping just in case, even though the occasion hasn't come up in four years. The things buried under other things, which makes them pretty much unusable anyway. The things you forgot you owned until right now, reading this. (Ours, currently: an empty Nintendo Switch box we are definitely not returning.)
There's a well-documented psychological principle called loss aversion: we feel losses more sharply than we feel equal gains. It's why we hold onto things that have clearly stopped being useful. Getting rid of something feels like a loss, even when keeping it costs space, attention, and a little mental overhead every time you see it.
The "just in case" impulse is a version of this. Take the box of assorted screws and hardware from every piece of furniture you've ever put together. You don't keep it because you need it. You keep it because someday you might, and getting rid of it now would feel like a mistake you're making in advance.
Here's the catch with just-in-case things: when you actually need them, you've usually forgotten you have them. You look for the thing, can't find it, and order a new one anyway. The original is still in a bin somewhere. It never got dealt with. It just got put off.
Storage deserves its own honest look, whether it's a spare room, a basement, or a unit you pay for every month. If someone asked you right now what's in there, could you tell them? Without going to look?
If not, that tells you something. Stored things are there on purpose. Everything else is just waiting for a decision.
For anything living in storage long-term, ask two questions. Does this have real sentimental or monetary value? And if I needed it, would I actually remember it was here? If the answer to both is no, it's probably time to let it go.
You don't have to evaluate everything, and you probably don't have to think very hard about most of it. Start with the box of screws.
If you'd like some help deciding what stays, let's talk →