As a Certified Professional Organizer with over a decade in the decluttering business, I've probably asked clients  "Do you love it" , "Do you use it" and "Do you need it" a million times. Often clients will answer these questions by telling me all the ways that they might, could, or should use that item at some point in the future.  It’s always an interesting discussion because people can be downright CREATIVE in their reasoning. However, when the goal is to downsize or move, it’s my job to help them be less creative and more practical. A recent experience gave me a better question to ask when someone is struggling with downsizing.

We use words like might, could, and should when we are describing the possibilities or aspirations around our possessions. These words give us the wiggle room to delay making decisions about our things even when those things are actually functioning as clutter in daily life. By overthinking every possible situation where we might use stuff, we lose our perspective around the fact that having too much of everything is creating real problems in our life.

It’s probably some part of the survival instinct that makes us fear not having enough resources. We don’t ever want to be caught without. Our stuff gives us comfort until it builds to the point that it starts to give us anxiety. But the uncertainty that comes with deciding what is clutter feels uncomfortable and leads us to overthink when making the decision to reduce.  So, we shuffle our stuff, cycle through the questions, delay the decision and we make little progress.

However, there are times when we really need to be able to make decisions. Usually, I’m having these discussions with clients who have hired me because they MUST downsize. Their house is causing them stress or they need to control the costs of a move. We are on the clock and must cut through overthinking in order to make decisions about what can be let go.

Recently, after working too many hours with a client on a huge project,  I picked up a duffle bag out of a pile of duffle bags and asked “Could you make do without this?” That phrase - make do without - was something my grandparents used to say and I guess my tired brain just spit it out. And, to my surprise, my client immediately started thinking out loud about what she would do if she didn’t have that duffle bag. She talked about what bag she would substitute instead. It was a real-time insight into how changing the question can reframe the decision. 

If you find yourself struggling to downsize and you are getting stuck on an item, ask yourself if you could make do without it.  Is there something else you could use or wear? Could you perform an activity in a different way?  Would you even miss this thing if it magically disappeared?

Reframing the question by asking “Can I make do without this?" allows the creative side of our brain to come up with substitutions and solutions. There is comfort in knowing that you will still have the resources you need even if you let this thing go. Instead of feeling the loss, we are focusing on the knowledge that we will have enough.