Reduce Household Clutter By Visualising Buying An Item Again

Sometimes the biggest problem with getting rid of junk around the house is deciding whether you’ll ever use an item again. To help solve for this, Psychology Today recommends a simple brain exercise where you visualise purchasing an item again.

Image: Unnar Ymir Bjornsson.

The idea is to see if you’d be willing to purchase the item again at the going rate. Here’s how Psychology Today breaks it down:

Let’s say you have a digital camera that you are thinking of getting rid of. You can go onto eBay and find out how much similar cameras have sold for. This gives you a good idea of what you could get for yours if you sold it. Now, ask yourself: “If I didn’t already own this camera, would I pay that much for it?” If the answer is no, then sell it immediately. Indeed, if you have remorse you can always buy another one, probably for a cheaper price.

The reason this works is because when you imagine you don’t own an item you get a better idea of its true value. It’s essentially a way to trick yourself into working out of the endowment effect that suggests when we own something, we value it more.

Using Imagination to Reduce Clutter In Your Home [Psychology Today]