Welcome to Day 4 of the 10 Days to a Tidy House Challenge! A few days ago I shared a crazy idea that I had with you guys: decluttering and tidying up your house in just 10 days. (You can read more in the introduction to the challenge HERE.) It must have struck a chord with several of you, because I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response! So, thank you for joining me. I’ll be posting pictures and lists of the items I’ve decluttered on my Facebook page throughout the challenge. You’re welcome to follow me and share your own experience as well!
Day 4: Tidying Your Books
I love to read. That is probably an understatement. I am a huge book nerd! So I am both excited about and dreading today’s challenge: tidying your books. Excited because I’ll get to look at all of my books, but dreading it because I will most likely have to get rid of some. This is a decluttering challenge, after all. So, with fear and trembling, let’s begin today’s challenge!
Today we are going to do four things:
- Gather ALL of the books that we own and place them in a pile on the floor
- Ask ourselves, “Does it spark joy?” and keep only the ones that do
- Decide what to do with the remaining books
- Organize the ones we will be keeping
By the end of today, our bookshelves will be a lot tidier and a little lighter!
Gather All of the Books
You should be getting pretty good at this part by now! Go and get all of the books that you own–with a couple of exceptions.
- Don’t get the children’s books (we’ll do those tomorrow!)
- If your spouse or teenage children did not want you to tidy their things (see Day One), then leave their books alone
Everything else is fair game. If you are at all like me, you’ll have books all over the house. Check your bedroom, the living room, the hallway, even the bathroom! You might have some in storage or in the office. Get them all out and place them in one central location.
Ask Yourself “Does This Spark Joy?”
Again, this key question from Marie Kondo of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is critical. Hold each book individually. Touch it, remember it, remember who you were when you got it. And then ask, “Does it spark joy?” If the answer is yes, then keep it. If no, it’s time to give it away. (One important note, Kondo recommends that you NOT open the books and start reading. You just might find yourself still reading an hour later!)
Remember that you don’t have to defend your taste. What sparks joy for you may be entirely different than what you WISH you liked. However, keeping books around that you think, “I should read that,” will actually place a burden on you.
The same is true about books that used to spark joy but no longer do. These may include college textbooks, binders from classes that you’ve taken, or books that you read once and enjoyed but don’t plan on ever picking up again.
I will be keeping hundreds of books, but they do genuinely spark joy. As a reading teacher, a great portion of my life is devoted to reading. So, obviously, it is a life-giving, energizing force for me. And when I see my books I feel that energy, that joy, that passion. However, I am giving myself permission to give away any books that I bought (or received as gifts), haven’t read, and don’t really feel like reading. This may include award winning books that others have raved about, and that’s ok. If at some future date I really want to read them, I’ll check them out from my library.
Sort and Send
Now that you’ve chosen which books you would like to keep, it’s time to decide what to do with those that you no longer want. Here are a few options:
- Sell them on eBay (many people have great luck with this and earn a LOT of money that way)
- Sell them on Craigslist (best if you sell small groups of books in lots, for example, the entire Harry Potter series, etc.)
- Give them to Amazon Trade-in for an Amazon gift card (see my article HERE about how to do this)
- Put them in a “Little Free Library” if you have one in your neighborhood
- Donate them to your library for their annual book sale
- Donate them to a homeless shelter or other charity
- Give them to friends who might genuinely enjoy them (don’t just unload your junk on someone else!, though!)
- Try to sell them on a Facebook Yard Sale group
Whatever you choose to do, remember to get them out of the house quickly. We don’t want these boxes of books to turn into permanent fixtures in the house!
Organize Your Books
Finally, it’s time to organize. You should now have drastically reduced the amount of books that you have, so you will likely need less space for your books. With fewer books, you will also find them easier to organize. Decide what works for you and what makes you happy.
Anne at Modern Mrs. Darcy likes organizing her books by color. Seeing them arranged like a beautiful rainbow gives her joy. Others organize by genre, by author, or by purpose. As long as you know where everything is, that’s great!
As you are organizing, here are a couple of great articles for inspiration:
The KonMari Method: Organizing Books by Just a Girl and Her Blog
Decluttering Books by DIY Passion
Today’s Action Items
To recap, here are your action items for the day:
- Gather all of YOUR books
- Ask, “Does this spark joy?” and only keep those that do
- Decide where to send the rest of the books
- Organize your remaining books in a way that makes sense to you
That’s it for today! Join me tomorrow for Day 5: Tidying Up The Kids’ Books and Toys
See you then!
Catch up on the Challenge.
Day Two: Tidying Up Your Clothing
Day Three: Tidying Up the Kids’ Clothes
Which challenge have you found the easiest so far? Which the most difficult?
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