This year, we’re spending time in our storage rooms, like really spending time there. Not just sorting and labeling, but understanding why these spaces become what they become. And if there’s one phrase that explains more storage rooms than almost anything else, it’s this: “just in case.”. So in this episode, we’re pulling apart the “just in case” mindset: where it comes from, why it feels so rational in the moment, and what it’s actually costing you. We’ll quickly look at the psychology behind keeping things for a hypothetical future, talk about what researchers have found about our tendency to overestimate future need, and I’ll share what I see again and again in my work with real clients and what finally helps them let go.
In This Episode We Talk About
- Why “just in case” thinking is rooted in more than practicality
- The research behind loss aversion and future self disconnection, and how these patterns quietly keep your home (and your head) cluttered
- Practical ways to have an honest conversation with yourself about what you’re really holding onto
Mentioned in This Episode
- Loss aversion research by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky: the foundational work on why losses feel twice as powerful as equivalent gains
- Future self-continuity studies: research showing that many people feel emotionally disconnected from their future selves, treating them almost like strangers when making decisions today
- The “20-20 rule” from The Minimalists: if you could replace it for under $20 and find it within 20 minutes, it’s probably safe to let it go
Review full show notes and resources at https://theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast
Review Transcript:
If you've been with me this year, you know, we've been doing something a little different. We've been spending time in our storage rooms, like really spending time in there, not just talking about how to sort things or what bins to buy, although we are talking about that as well, but not focused on that piece of it, the aesthetic piece of it, but actually trying to understand why these spaces become what they become, why they fill up, why they're so hard to deal with.
What's really going on in there and taking actionable steps in doing something about it, and that something is whatever you decide the solution is. So for some of you, it's decluttering and making those storage rooms much more manageable and not have as much stuff. For some of you, it's truly needing to declutter because of whatever the reason you're moving, you're downsizing, you just have too much stuff, and you need to declutter.
And for some of you, it's just taking that first step, that baby step, to finally figure out what you want to do and have intention in your storage rooms. And the more time I've spent thinking about storage rooms in my client's homes, in my own home, and in conversations with all of you, the more I keep coming back to two words, which is the theme for today's episode.
And that is the just in case words and statement. And I wanna start today with a question, and what I want you to actually think about before we move into the episode, and that is, what are you keeping just in case right now, maybe it's in your storage room, a box that you haven't opened in years.
Equipment for a hobby you might return to, maybe not furniture from a house that no longer exists. Clothes from a size or a season of life that has passed, and maybe it's elsewhere, like a shelf in the closet, a corner of the garage, a cabinet in the kitchen, because we all have storage rooms that look a little different.
Some of us have storage rooms that are offsite not in within your property, and for some of you, it's a closet in your apartment. Some of you have a full on unfinished basement or the guest room, right? But I'd be willing to bet that if you went into whatever space in your home. That is doing the work of a storage room right now, you'd find a whole collection of things being held for a future that hasn't arrived yet.
So the just in case sounds like practicality, it sounds like wisdom as well, but, but like you're being responsible and prepared and sometimes it is those things, but a lot of the time it's something else entirely. And today we're going to talk about what that something else actually is and what we can do about it so we can take action and have intention in our storage rooms.
So let's get started.
Welcome to the Organized and Cherish podcast with the Organized Flamingo. I am your host Stephanie, your compassionate and deficient professional organizer. Whether you are part of the sandwich generation helping a loved one declutter, or just trying to simplify life, this is the place for you. Together we will tackle those overwhelming piles of stuff, uncover purpose in what we keep, and let go with dignity and care, because it's not just about throwing everything away, it's about respecting memories and simplifying life.
Sound like a plan? Let's jump in and get organized. So I want you to think about the last time that you walked into your storage room or your basement, your store, spare bedroom, your garage, you know, wherever things go to. Wait, and what did you see? I'll tell you what I see in almost every storage room I've worked in, I see a collection of negotiations deals that were made often very quickly in the middle of a move or clear out, or a life transition details that sounded like.
I'll figure this out later. Okay, so I might need this someday. I'll keep it just in case. Storage rooms are in many ways the physical home of future self stuff, and I did a whole episode on what your storage room usually tells about you because it's a very telling room there where we put things we're not ready to decide about yet.
And just in case is the story we tell ourselves to make that feel. Okay, so lemme paint you a picture here. You're doing a big clear out, you pull out a blender that hasn't been used in three years, and by the way, this is a picture that is very real, like a real client. I will not name any names, but I have a feeling that even though I'm talking about one particular person that I worked with in this scenario, it applies to many of you and thus me included.
Okay? I always include myself in these conversations because most of these have also happened to me, so let's continue on. Alright, so the lid is cracked and technically it still works. And the thought comes immediately with, well, I'll just keep this in case like it cracked, like it still works. I'll just keep it.
Either you end up just using it until it really falls apart. You make, do you tape it, however, however you need to do and tape it together. Or you go buy a new one, but you keep the old one with a crack. Then you say, I'll keep it just in case. Just in case. What exactly is what my question is immediately, because that will then start the conversation.
Right. And then I'll have you like an exercise. I will actually have you do. Right. And then you'll fill in the blanks. So this is what the response was, just in case the blender breaks like the new one because they bought the, the same brand. I can use the lid for that. Or not the lid, but the jar of it. I can't think of the name right now, but you know, the jar of it.
I'll have like spare parts. In other words, I've also heard that just in case you suddenly want to make like smoothies, you know, for, or you, you'll fill in the, like in case I want to make something else with my extra, and in this case it was, well just in case I have a party outside, this can be my outside blender.
Or if someone comes over and they need a blender, I'll have another one. And so that is where the just in case scenarios come in, right, that scenario is vague. The future self who needs this cracked blender is a ghost. She doesn't have a face or a date. You may think it's you, but you really don't know.
That person is not a person of like an identity. Like you don't know who is actually going to be that person. That person is just out there somewhere waiting and so the blender goes into the storage room at some point, if, especially if it's your spare one. And you don't have room in your main kitchen.
Immediately, you'll put it in your storage room and there it joins the bread maker from 2019, the extra curtains from the last house, the box of cables for devices that you no longer own, and all that ski equipment for the trips you were definitely going to start taking again, right? Quote unquote, like for sure I will.
This is what I call negotiating with your future self. You're making deals with a version of you who may never actually exist, and in the meantime, your storage room fills up and that low grade dread you feel every time you open the door. That's the cost of all those unresolved negotiations. Not to mention if you're paying for the storage room, then there's the actual financial cost of renting this room.
I say all of this with so much love and compassion because I've had this exact thought myself, like for me in my own stuff too. So I get it. Having someone tell you the obvious doesn't feel great, and now you know that you have to make decisions and you're not ready for it, and it's just a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress.
I get it. And again, I've worked with these people all the time, so I also can see and identify when someone is having those emotions. It's not a character flaw, and it's actually a very human thing, but understanding why we do it is going to be the first step to doing it differently. So I wanna start off with the why.
The very quickly, why, again, I say this often, every other episode, I'm not a mental health practitioner. I'm not a psychologist, and I don't pretend to be one. I do, however, work in this industry and I have been for over 25 plus years, and I am a certified professional organizer who does a lot of training with mental health professionals who can guide us through what to identify, what are the red flags, what to do about it.
Okay? So I'm in it. I've seen the change. I also work with people that do this for a living, uh, the mental health piece of it. So I do feel prepared to talk about it enough to at least guide you through what may be happening. And then I will guide you right back to actionable steps from the professional organizing perspective on what you can do about it.
Okay? So let's get to that piece of it. Hi, cherish friends. Life can get overwhelming, especially when you're juggling caregiving, clutter and everything in between. That's why I created the Organizing Cherish Weekly email that goes out every Wednesday straight to your inbox. To help you keep the momentum inspiration going with tips and reminders of our upcoming events, all you have to do is head on over to organize and cherish.com and sign up for the email newsletter.
It's free and you can up subscribe whenever you'd like. It's my way of helping you simplify your life and respecting memories along the way. Now back to our show. So what is actually happening when we hold onto thanks just in case. It turns out that there's quite a bit of research on this, and the first piece is something called loss aversion.
Now, this isn't in chronological when it was found. These are just concepts that I think you should know that are associated with what is happening. And this is one of those early findings that I think started happening, especially with over consumption. Okay? But the concept comes from psychologist Daniel Kaman and Amos Ky, and that's what they found.
Is that we feel losses twice as intensely as we feel equivalent gains. And what does that mean? So losing a hundred dollars hurts roughly twice as much as gaining that a hundred dollars or a different a hundred dollars. So you just have this more painful feeling when you lose something. Then when you gain it, now apply that to your storage room.
Getting rid of something, even something you haven't used in years, feels like a loss. Your brain registers it as giving something up and that feeling of potential loss is enough to override all of the rational thinking about whether you actually need the thing. The cracked blender isn't valuable, but losing it might be might, and that might is powerful enough to keep it on a shelf for another year.
The second piece is something researchers call future self continuity. Studies have shown that many of us feel emotionally disconnected from our future selves, so we treat our future self almost like a stranger, and when we make decisions for the future, we're essentially making decisions for someone we don't fully relate to, like we don't even know that person.
So this shows up so clearly in storage rooms. You keep the formal China because future U might entertain more. You keep the ski equipment because future U is definitely getting back into skiing and you keep the craft supplies because future U has all the time in the world for a weekend projects. Now I'm gonna give you a really, like a very specific example, and this is for my example, my personal example about crafts.
So I, I've always been a crafter, love crafts. I've tried everything. The scrapbooking, the embossing, the card making, the, you name it. Okay. I can name them all. Stitching, all of it. I have now, I used to have an entire room, like a craft room, and I loved it. It was like my mini Michaels, I would call it, right?
And it was my happy place, but I didn't have the time, uh, between work and life. And then eventually my kiddo was born and it was a lot. And I didn't have time to craft. And honestly, I love it, but I love the concept of the things, like the little things. But doing it, like, actually, you know, going in and doing the craft takes a lot of time and, and I wa I was kind of resisting it.
I didn't love that piece of it. I just loved collecting stuff. But things started to get dusty, et cetera, et cetera. So we moved. And so I had to pack everything and oh my gosh, there was so much stuff. So that was my first round of decluttering, right? I got rid of stuff I, I donated to school meant a lot to me.
This is before I had a kiddo, so it was wonderful. Lovely. Okay, so I took the rest of the stuff to my house where I live now. I decided that my boundaries would be this closet. It's like a good sized closet, and that's where I would keep all my craft stuff. And I call it my mini Michaels closet, right? But I still have not used the stuff for years.
And so my little one, he's, you know, growing up, he's now in Kindergart as as the taping of this recording. And so he is entered school. For a little while, I was like, you know what? I need to take my own advice. I, this craft closet gets messy whenever I need something. Um, I don't use most of the stuff. A lot of the stuff is losing.
Its vibrancy. Its stickiness, like stickers or, um, glue. The glue sticks are all dried out. It's embarrassing. Threw them away. Here's where my future self conversation started. It was, well, once I have more time, I wanna make some cards for Christmas. Well, that future self has not shown up yet. And now when I'm being realistic, it probably won't show up.
But here's where I started to put that future self into the, right now, my little one is in school and he has a lot of craft projects. So now that craft room is a right now need because now he's using the crayons, the markers, the stickers, the everything, and he likes to draw and do crafts. So it's actually very relevant now.
So I'm starting to use that stuff for the right now. So now that conversation is shifting from, you know, what that used to be for my future self, but I'm being realistic that that future self is not my right now, but my right now is him and he's using it. So now it is the mini Michael's for him, like for his needs and lightly for me whenever I might use it.
But now I'm not using my future self to identify who that person that is using that stuff is. So that's kinda like an example of the difference between the future self and yourself right now, because future you is aspirational. Future you is often a slightly, probably either better, more organized, more energetic version of yourself.
And I love that. I love that we have hope. But when that hope lives in boxes in your storage room or closet for years at a time. It starts to become weight instead of motivation. The third thing worth mentioning is that psychologists call the Endowment Effect. When I've talked about this in many of our other podcast episodes, as well as the newsletter that we send out on Wednesdays, this in loss aversions are two things that I talk about quite a bit.
The tendency to overvalue things simply because we own them. So once something is ours, yeah, that endowment like it is now yours. Even if it's something that you inherited, right? It is now yours. You purchased with your own money. However you acquired it, it is now yours. It's worth more to us than it would be if we were just seeing it on a shelf.
So when we're deciding whether to keep something. We're already biased towards keeping it just because it's already ours. Psychologically it's already happening. So you've got that kind of against you. If your goal is to get rid of stuff or declutter or try to have more intention, and why is this so hard to let it go?
This could be happening. So put off these things, all these three things together. Loss aversion, future self disconnection, and the endowment effect. And you start to understand why storage rooms fill up the way they do. It's not because we're disorganized necessarily. It's not because we don't care. It's because our brains are doing exactly what brains do.
And just in case is the story that makes all of it feel reasonable. Let's keep things just in case. So like, just pretend right? Let's, let's just keep it. What's the big deal? Here's what I want you to sit with. Every object in your storage room has a cost, not just a dollar amount, though, that's real too.
But in terms of the space it occupies, it's a mental cost, a visual cost, an energetic cost, and every time you need to find something in your storage room and have to waddle through just in case items to locate it, that's friction. Every time you think about the storage room you haven't dealt with, that's a small but persistent weight.
And every time you open that door and feel that familiar wave of, I really need to deal with this, and that's your just in case collection talking, I talk a lot about clutter as postponed decisions and just in case keeping is essentially a postponed decision with a story attached to it. The story is, I might need this, but underneath that story is usually a question you haven't answered yet.
And sometimes it's practical, but most of the times it's emotional. It's Am I still the person who needs this? Am I ready to admit I'm not going back to that chapter of my life? Like the example I gave you about the craft room, those are questions I had to ask myself. Am I still the person who does this?
Am I ready to admit I'm not going back to being a scrapbooker or being a card maker or stitching, you know, little pillows. I worked with a client once who had boxes of baby items in her storage room. Right. And I think we all do or have had, and things that you've inherited as well counts. So even if you don't have kids, you also might have stuff from your baby years that you inherited.
But anyway, that's, besides, that's a, a different story anyway. Her youngest was, uh, 12 at this point, and she's been keeping the baby gear just in case your mom could be doing this as well. Your father, your caregiver, your grandparents with her, she, she's been keeping it over like a decade at this point, and when we finally sat down and talked about it, what came out wasn't that she thought she'd have another baby.
What came out was that letting go of the gear felt like letting go of that season of her life, like admitting it. It was over, which it was, but she wasn't ready to say that out loud yet. And when we donated to these items, she cried. I mean, big cry. Big cry. But she also said that she felt lighter when she came back to that space.
Like she'd given herself permission to be in the present instead of waiting. For a pass that wasn't coming back, but the memory hasn't left her. The pictures, the memorabilia, she did keep one bin of items that were super special and perhaps what she would want to pass on or maybe her daughter would want.
We kept some stuff and the pictures are there and the memory that is in her heart and in her mind are still there. So I share that story, not to make you feel pressure to let go of things, but because I think it illustrates something really important that a lot of what fills our storage rooms isn't really about the future.
It's about the past and the just in case label is how we give ourselves permission to keep it there without having to look at it too closely. Now, if you have a storage room or a party closet style, that's a little different. Your storage room is your present self. You are in an entertainer. You like to host.
You're a hostess. You throw a lot of parties. Your kiddos are in the growing ear ears where you're throwing get togethers. Um, you are, uh, an empty nester and you host a lot of, um, dinner parties or book. Loving party, you know, like book club type of parties. If you're in that stage of life, that's a little different.
That is the you right now, and it reflects who you are. So that's not who we're talking about. We're talking about keeping the just in case items. This year, we're looking at it a little closely, right, because it's the year of the storage room. But I hope that this conversation lives with you forever more, because you will come across as maybe not this year, but in the future years, and that's the whole point for you to be aware.
So how do you actually work through this? Let's quickly, I'm gonna give you some quick exercises here, and then if you ever wanna talk about it out loud, we have our week, our monthly organizing cherish chats on the third Wednesday of the month, and you can come join us. It's 10:00 AM at mountain time. You can do the math with your, um, your time zone.
But that's when we meet to talk about these things out loud. Okay? How can you actually work through this? How do you stand in your storage room and have a more honest conversation with yourself about what's worth keeping? Okay. Question number one. How specific is the scenario when you say you're keeping something just in case, can you name the actual scenario?
Not a vague, something might come up, a real plausible, specific situation. If your answer is concrete and genuinely it could happen in your life in the next like six to 12 months, that's different. You know, that's an actual, I will need it for this specific event. So give that scenario name. If you can't, well time to re uh, think about the stuff that you are keeping just in case.
Question number two, what is the actual cost of replacement? There's a popular rule of thumb called the 2020 rule. If you could replace an item for under $20 and find it within 20 minutes, it's probably safe to let it go now. Uh, you know, this is just like I do like this exercise for that quick thinking.
Um, I think most of our audience here can understand that it doesn't apply to everything. Some things, even if they're $20 and under, might be sentimental and hard to replace. But you make that judgment for yourself. This is just like a, a rule of thumb that has been helpful for many, again, 2020 rule. I don't think rules like this work for everybody, but in the, just in case category, it does.
So again, it's um, if you can replace an item for under $20 and find it within 20 minutes, if you could, you know if it's probably safe to let it go if you can do that, because that means you can quickly get it back if you need it for that future self. Question number three. Who is future you really, when you imagine the future self who might need this?
Who is she? Who is he? What is their life like? Is this person a realistic person of you giving your actual trajectory, or is this person more of a wish? I'm not saying dreams are bad, I'm just saying that keeping 20 pounds off the craft supplies for a version of yourself who has never actually done crafts.
That's not preparation. That's you being a warehouse for something that you are not really cut out to be, and it's worth getting honest about what that something else is. Question number four, and the last one is, what does the present version of you need? This is the one that E, it's easy to skip. We're so focused on future self that we forget to ask what does right now actually require.
I talked about my right now of needing crafts for my kiddo in his school and all of his things that he does, not just school, but in his own personal life. He's a crafter and he likes it, but if you cleared out the things you are holding for a future that may never come, what would that storage room give you today?
Could it become something useful? A workspace, a hobby room, A place you actually want to go into? Or at the very least, a space that doesn't fill you with dread when you open the door. That's the goal. It's intentional. The present version of you is real. That person is here right now. That person is living in this home right now.
That person deserves a storage room that works for their life, not just for future selves. Hypothetical person. Okay. So I wanna end with a few things, um, that I have found really helpful for clients and for myself. So first is to give yourself the just in case, um, container, um, boundaries really, really helpful.
Um, so maybe you have a couple containers or one corner as opposed to the entire basement. And, you know, just give it a boundary, like depending on where you are and how big your space is or how big or how small, give yourself a realistic boundary. Second, use the dated box method, which is when you're genuinely, um, unsure about something like you really don't know, especially if you inherit stuff that's hard, you know, to throw it away immediately because it could have sentimental value.
Um, so put it in a box. Write today's date on the outside, and set a six month reminder on your phone to take a look again. And if you haven't opened that box, by the time that reminder goes off, it's time to make a decision, like a definite decision. Donate it, do something about it. The third is to reframe the letting go.
When you donate something you've been holding onto, try to think about where it's going rather than what you're giving up. Um, so that gear you're keeping just in case you go skiing could be exactly what someone else needs. Right now, when they're actually going in there, the only thing stopping them is not having the right gear that's affordable.
Your stuff actually might be cracking. It might not even work anymore, so it's a win-win for everybody. Clearing your storage room isn't just about making space in your home. It's also about passing something along to where it actually belongs and is actually going to be used, whereas it is just sitting reminding you of the things you haven't done, and that's no fun either.
I hope this was all super helpful. Do these exercises. Pause as you're listening or re-listening to the podcast. We also have the scripts and the show notes on our website, which is the organized flam go.com and head on over to podcast. So in case you're like, okay, this was good, but I'm on the run. I didn't write down any of this.
Just head on over to our website podcast page and it will give you the rundown there. And then you can work through this exercise on your own time, um, and revisit this on your own time. Alright, until next week, happy organizing. Thank you for listening to the Organized and Cherish podcast with the Organized Flamingo.
If you enjoy today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you left a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. It helps others discover our show. For full show notes, resources, and more organizing inspiration, visit www.theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast. Until next time, happy organizing.