Does this make my life better?

I recently read a post on Unclutterer about how to talk to yourself when you are trying to make decisions about what to do with your stuff.

A reader called Diana had written in and recommended asking yourself a single question when you are trying to decide what to chuck and what to keep:

Does this make my life better?

The post went on to say:

The word does is in the present tense. Diana isn’t asking if the thing did make her life better at some point in the past. She isn’t asking if it could maker her life better in the future. Nor is she asking if it should make things better based on other people’s perceptions. All she is asking is if it does make her life better, right now. So often we hold onto things because they were once meaningful or because we think we might need them at some undetermined point in the future or because we worry about what other people will think if we get rid them. Asking the straightforward, “Does this make my life better?” allows you to avoid these cluttering scenarios and instead focus on the present.

I think this is very good advice. I often get hung up thinking about possible scenarios in which I would have an urgent need for the item in question. Sometimes time gives us perspective and looking back over, for instance, the past twelve years in which you have NOT had occasion to use the item even once, makes it much easier to get rid of it.

So much about staying healthy is living in the present moment and here is another tidbit of wisdom we can recall when we are having trouble deciding what to do with an object in our lives.