BOOKS; you are what you read?

I remember when the KonMari method first went mainstream. People said ‘Marie Kondo, the one who wants you to throw away all your books’. NO. The principle is to be intentional with everything (book) you have. Yes, go through them all, but only keep the books you want; not the ones you don’t. Simple.

Your bookshelf should be a place of pride, a place where you see books that have inspired or moved you. It shouldn’t be a guilty reminder of books you were given or bought and were supposed to read but, well, haven’t. There’s even a word in Japanese, Tsundoku, that means acquiring reading material but letting them pile up without reading them.

Here’s how to declutter books. After taking your ‘before’ photos, step one is to bring all your books into one location. Books can be dispersed all over the house – think of the cookbooks in the kitchen, novels on the bedside table, magazines and short reads in the bathroom, as well as those that you might have on a bookshelf. Once they’re all in one place take a step back and marvel at your collection. Is it bigger than you thought? Probably, yes.

Now it’s time to start division; selecting the books you want in your life. Not ones you’ve read, not ones you think you’re going to read, but ones you WANT. For me, that has meant books that had a profound impact when I read them that almost makes them sentimental, as well as any that are sentimental. I do have a couple of exceptions, books that I know I’m about to read, but this is less than 5% of all my books and I WILL declutter every 6 months – if I still haven’t read that book, I’ll ask myself WHY and decide if I really want that book in my life after all.

DIVISION – BY CATEGORY

The first option is to divide your books into keep/discard and, with those books you’re keeping, think about the sub-categories. If you keep it top level, you might just divide into Fiction, Non-fiction, Cookbooks and Magazines. If you’re a book lover or work in a library, you’ll scoff at that oversimplification and demand a longer, richer list that the literary world deserves. A more complete list can be found at the end – but your categorisation might go even further.

Once you have your (sub)categories of books, you can start thinking about POSITION. I start by putting my biggest categories in first and fill in the rest of the shelf with the smaller categories around it. Inside each subcategory, you could organise them from small to big, or colour coordinated; it’s whatever makes your book section speak to YOU.

DIVISION – BY COLOUR

Another option is to divide your books into keep/discard and then display the spines in a rainbow. This works well if you’re very visual and you know which books have what colour spine – you can zero into the book quickly AND you’ll love how it looks! POSITION will be dictated by how many books you have as well as the shelf space you're working with.

LOVE

At the end of the day, you’re supposed to LOVE you home and LOVE the books in and around your home. That means loving the ones you have (NOT feeling guilty about them), bring able to find a book when you want to and loving how they’re displayed. If you don’t like dividing by category, try by colour. Or you might realise you want a new display altogether for your new selection of books! I’m currently looking for new shelves for the living room for my books.

Don’t forget to also sort any e-catalogues of books you have, like on Audible, Kindle or other e-readers. Harder perhaps to reposition, but worth deleting those you don’t want on your list anymore.

DISCARDING

Don’t be sad about the books you discard. If you hold on to them and they’re unread, they’re not fulfilling their destiny. If you let them go, you give that book the opportunity to be read and loved. There are some second-hand book sellers, or you can donate to charity shops if they’re in decent condition. What I really like to do is take some to public ‘exchange stations’ or book swap booths; they hold a few books and interested readers can drop off and/or pick up books as they please.

Good luck with books, and share you #LYSdeclutterthon story on Instagram!

More extensive list of categories:

§ Fantasy

§ Adventure

§ Romance

§ Contemporary

§ Dystopian

§ Mystery

§ Horror

§ Thriller

§ Paranormal

§ Historical fiction

§ Science Fiction

§ Memoir

§ History

§ Travel

§ Guides / How-to

§ Families & Relationships

§ Humour

§ Cooking

§ Art

§ Self-help / Personal

§ Development

§ Language learning

§ Motivational

§ Health

§ Children and teen