Time to declutter your books?

Do you love books? Are you reading a new one every week? Don’t even know where to put all your books?

We’ve met a number of expats in this region who just love, love, love reading. For them, there’s nothing better than escaping into a different world after a long day at the office. While many started using their Kindle more often, reading a book with real paper pages to turn is a different experience. Are you one who also prefers the paper over ebooks? Yes? Then this post is for you!

Today, we’re sharing 4 tips on decluttering and organising your books:

A small start

Set your timer for 15 minutes and tackle one shelf on your bookshelves. Don’t know with which shelf to start? Take the one that annoys you most!

If you have a number of those, follow the zig-zag approach. Let’s assume you’ve a number of bookshelves next to each other. You start in the upper left hand corner of your first bookshelf. From there, you move along all shelves on the same level until you get to the far right shelf. Once that is done, you move one level down and start on the left side, again moving from left to right.

Say good-bye

Julie Morgenstern has a “no-brainer toss list”. For her, books that can be decluttered are those that are out of date, have been read and where there’s no plan to read or re-read them.

If you like Marie Kondo’s approach, you can also let go of those which don’t bring you joy.

In September, I’ve let go travel guides printed in 2002. While some of the tips are probably still true, recommendations for hotels and restaurants or opening hours for museums would have changed. With the internet, I can find accurate and more timely advise.

Donate, sell or toss

You can sell or donate well maintained and timeless books. You may have already seen community libraries established at various locations where you can just drop them. Some other bookworm can still read them.

Your local library or your kid’s school library may also accept them. Call them before you take all your books there.

If pages are also loose or you’ve left your personal comments, it’d be better to throw it out. Now, for me, that’s always hard. Coming from a country where books were burnt in the 1930s, it hurts me to throw them out. Yet, if they can’t be saved, recycle them. The thought of these books getting a fresh take on life and in a different shape and form comforts me.

Organise your books

If you are a creative person and love the look, you can organise your books by the colour of their binding and create an art work in itself.

To me, however, this seems impractical, no matter what this quiz said (it said colour!). Sorting your books by category (e.g. fiction, non-fiction, reference or children’s) as suggested by Donna Smallin helps you find them quicker. She also recommends arranging them alphabetically by author.

Tracy Shapley has listed the pros and cons of the many additional ways to organise your books, e.g. in chronological order, by genre.

Have you ever tackled your books? For many, including me, this is a sentimental issue. How have you decluttered yours? It’d be great to hear your journey. Will you share it with other members of the Organised Life and Mind community in the comments section below?

Until next time,
Agni