Decide what to keep and what to discard with this Decluttering questionnaire

Decluttering can be overwhelming. Whether you’re taking on a big spring-cleaning effort to get rid of as much stuff as possible or making a decision about a single item, it can be hard to let physical objects go. It can also be hard to deal with the effects of deciding to keep an object that we previously considered tossing out: the space it occupies, the ongoing frustration of not using it despite our good intentions, maintenance costs, emotions and memories tied to the item, etc.

In an effort to help clarify your thoughts about the objects you own and arrive at clear decisions about whether or not to keep them, I created a free downloadable pdf guide called the “Decluttering Questionnaire”. The guide asks you to keep in mind a specific item you own and then consider if you agree or disagree with 23 statements. The questionnaire does not arrive at a decision for you; it is meant to help you guide your thinking based on how the item is perceived overall (if you disagree on nearly all statements, you should probably discard it) and how it might be perceived in a new light through certain key statements (your position on one or a few key statements may be enough to guide your decision).

The questionnaire is available for free as a downloadable pdf document on our Products page (click here). You can print it and fill it out by hand or fill it out directly as a pdf document on your device; it has space to type in the name of the item you’re considering and clickable checkboxes (Agree/Disagree) for each statement. It is available in both English and French.

Please contact us if you have any ideas to help us improve the questionnaire.