My easy, fun system for decluttering books

Going through all your books can be a daunting task. My system helps me get the situation under control, prevent overwhelm and get on with what I love. Reading.

Fake decluttering

A bookcase can be a magnet for clutter. I know mine was. After relocating knick-knacks, it's time to organise the books. I arrange mine in height order so they form a gentle slope.

Clearly this doesn't clear out any books, but it's fairly quick and already it's looking and feeling a lot less cluttered.

That's a psychological win - a feeling of momentum. Like I'm half way there in not much time at all. A good way to defeat the feeling of overwhelm.

Even at this stage a visiting relative complimented me on how organised we were. If only she knew how easy that step was. :)

Pick out the definites

Generally there'll be a few "keepers"; precious gems that you have to hang on to. Separate them.

Some books you can already say goodbye to. Separate them too.

I put each of these on different shelves and put an object between them and the rest of the books. My keepers are in the green area and my sellers are in the blue area.

As I mentioned in part one, a lot of my books are either unread or not read in a long time. So I have a large undecided section. Also, I've already sold quite a few. You're situation may look different depending on your reading habits.

The best bit: reading

Some decluttering can be hard work. But now this is simply reading.

Each time I finish a book from the left hand side, it goes in either the green keep area, or in the blue sell area (and listed online for sale).

Hopefully the green area will grow just a little bit. Given my reading habits (it's rare I read a book twice) most of the books should go to the blue area - and then be sold.

The end results should be that I'm left with a much smaller, curated collection of books that I really love. Yes.

Tips for selling

PS. If you've are looking to sell your books or other items online, you may want to grab a free copy of my ebook Less Clutter More Cash for tips and advice.

Comments

Ethical Investing for Australians

I write about investing, because it's a key part of life. Spending less and investing means an automatic income. An automatic income means we can work less (if we choose) and definitely stress less. But where to invest? What to invest in? Many people expect their money to be invested responsibly and ethically - rather than making money through things like cigarettes, weapons, casinos, adult entertainment, environmental destruction, and pollution from fossil fuels. Those are all things we could probably do with less of. So how do we invest to get good returns - and to have a positive effect on the world? Here are some sources I've seen: Ethical Investing in Australia At Frugality and Freedom , Michelle has done a fair bit of research into Ethical Investing in Australia . For herself, she's chosen Bank Australia for banking, Australian Ethical for superannuation, and two exchange-traded funds ( FAIR and ETHI ) for her share investing outside of super. She also gives detail...

How to waste a year's wages

A friend recently asked me why it is that so many people (on good incomes) are struggling to save. Often the big three money areas are housing, transport and food. In one sense these are necessary items. But what we spend on them is often way more than necessary. I crunched some numbers on how much extra my wife and I could spend on these things - if for some reason we wanted to burn our money. 1. Housing Our apartment is fairly nice, but also cost-effective. I've mentioned how choosing it saves us $1,800 per year , compared to a similar one we saw. The high end of 2-bedroom apartments in our suburb is $305 per week more than our apartment. Not $305 per week. $305 per week more than ours is. I cannot get over that. Sure it's new and modern-looking, but that's a lot of money. It's an extra $15,860 per year above what we pay. 2. Transport The Australian Automobile Association lists the costs of owning and running a car. It includes many often-overlooked c...

Don't dump on charities

Netflix causes mass dumping. Here's an alternative. January is usually a big month for physical donations to charity. In 2019 it's been over-the-top (literally) as charity donation bins have been overflowing with items. The Netflix series "Tidying Up" by famous declutterer Marie Kondo (see her book ) has inspired many to declutter their homes. But in the process they've cluttered the streets. What's so bad about donating? When the bins overflow the extra items are thrown away. Having been in the weather, the rain and on the ground, they are classified as contaminated and cannot be sold. To make it worse, much of what fills the bins is not good enough to sell, and is also dumped. Bad donations hurt charities 13 million dollars. That's how much it costs charities to deal with all the junk we dump on them - 60,000 tonnes a year. Lifeline says half its stores have stopped accepting donations. We might think we're helping, but that's a lot ...

But wait... there's less!

Search This Blog