If you can't get yourself to use the knife, you might consider getting or keeping a specific knife just for that purpose; getting it as sharp as possible. By assigning a specific knife to that job, you can rationalize to yourself using the other knives without any problems (or at least not be as obsessive about using other knives).
Heh, yeah, I've done this, but it doesn't really help. A lot of the time it's just a matter of having put a really nice edge on my EDC and not wanting to use that.
I always wind up convincing myself to use it though. Otherwise I won't see the point in keeping it that sharp in the first place. If it's a knife that I'm always using hard and going, "Oh, great, now I'm going to have to put that edge back on it," then I'll just leave that edge a little duller or wait to sharpen it.
Part of the thing here is that for myself personally, it takes a long time to sharpen a knife. I don't really mind spending that time, and in fact I enjoy it, but once you've invested that much time, effort and care into an edge it's kind of hard to commit yourself to using it. You get a feeling like you're destroying some fine piece of art that you've created. I'm not talking about the edges that you sit down and pop on in an hour or so--not even the really nice ones that you more experienced guys are good at getting quickly. I'm talking about spending a few days on an edge, taking breaks when you get tired, to get it as close as perfect as your abillities will allow, and sparing no amount of time, concentrating or patience to achieve it. Those kinds of edges are just hard to undo, and the idea of, "Well, I can always replicate it again," isn't always immediately recognized because the quality of the edge is looked upon as some sort of epitome of sharpness that you won't be able to reach again, and then even once you do realize that, you wind up thinking, "But do I really want to go through all that much trouble again?" My knives are far from mirror polished, but I think that anyone who has put a mirror polish on the knife probably has the same sort of dynamic... "Do I really want to use it and put a scratch in that will force me to do the whole thing over?"
On the other hand, the thing I always come back to is: What's the point of having an edge that nice if you're not going to use it. I mean, are you putting all that effort and work into an edge to sit there and look at it, or for the fact of, "I have an edge so sharp I can do this," or do you want it that sharp to use it?
I have a couple of, "I have an edge so sharp it can do this," knives that I'll never use for anything but whittling hairs and cutting up toilet paper, but I just don't like to go that far with most of my EDCs or work knives.
I think it was knifenut that said it, but now I do try to enjoy taking one of the knives that I've put so much effort in and actually using it for something to evaluate the performance, the edge retention, etc. Then on top of that, you get more practice at achieving that edge, and at one point the steps that you took to get there might not seem as intense and will seem mundane, and then in addition to that learning how to almost perpetually maintain a razor's edge with just a strop is great too.
On other thing I've started doing is giving myself a time limit to sharpen a knife. I spend so much time and effort getting my edges to what I see as perfection, that with each successive time I sharpen I'm always striving for better and better results. I found that if I spend a couple of days a week sharpening a kitchen knife and only give myself something like an hour to complete the edge, that kind of helps to alleviate the idea of, "Well, I put so much effort into this edge I don't want to use it." Most of the time I can sharpen a kitchen knife to usability in 5-10 minutes, but giving myself an hour to reset the bevel, raise a burr, polish, etc. and come out with a usable edge just helps me to practice the same techniques, but not avoid evaluating the results because I don't want to repeat the entire process over again. The edges are far from what I would even call desirable, but they work, and they teach.
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