The item kept unused can represent a plan nobody has admitted abandoning.

Objects can stand in for intentions long after the intention has gone. The instrument, the running shoes, the machine bought for a business that never started: keeping them means the plan is still technically alive, and getting rid of them would be admitting something out loud. So they stay, doing no work except holding a door open that nobody is walking through. The cost is a small reproach every time you see them.

Pick one of these and decide honestly whether the plan is current. If it is, put the next step in the diary; if it is not, letting the object go is a decision rather than a defeat.