Decluttering Books – A Journey to Sparking Joy

Hello and welcome back for another week of decluttering as part of the series I am participating in with these lovely ladies –

A Journey to Sparking Joy:
Anderson & Grant
Making it in the Mountains
DIY Passion
Dwelling in Happiness
Zevy Joy
Cupcakes & Crinoline
Lost in the Found
The Happy Housie
Each week we continue to tidy up our homes based off of categories while reading through the book, The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.  At first, I really didn’t  think I needed much help in the cleaning department because I consider myself a very tidy person.  But, after each week I am finding I am getting rid of more and more and am really learning some new tools when decluttering. As I have said before, I haven’t followed every bit of advice in the book due to circumstances with home renovations, having a little one at home while I attempt to do this or maybe I just can’t always see myself doing some of the recommendations.  None the less I would say this has been a valuable learning experience. The biggest trend I am noticing that helps the most per Marie’s instruction, is to focus on keeping what brings you joy or makes you happy.  That has been a huge change in my mindset of how I clean or tidy.  Typically, I would just go for each thing I wanted to get rid of, now, I pull it all out and choose what to keep!  It is such a help to do it this way – I love it!

Now onto books and how I cleared them out this week. I am not a huge reader – I will ocassionally read but not often.  I do a lot of reading online but in the last few years I truly have began getting rid of books. So this week kinda felt like a breeze!  Most of my books are actully antiques that I use for decor and they are scattered throughout the house being used right now.  Therefore I kept them – they are one of my favorite ways to decorate and fit the criteria of keeping things that bring joy.  Kondo also says that like all other categories of cleaning to put it all out in one spot.  Every single book.  I did this on our bedroom floor and began picking.  She talks about looking at them as “Unread” books and “Hall of Fame” books.  With the unread books those are ones that you hang on to because you may read them one day.  She says to get rid of them because this simply wont happen – and so I did!  I had maybe 10 books that fit this category and it felt great to pass them on.  Her wisdom in addition to the “Unread” books is that you can get these titles so easily online now.  Then on to the “Hall of Fame” books, her book claims pulling out and filing special pages or simply keeping the ones that you must keep because they have a purpose for you.

(an example of just lego instructions and books)

Unfortunately I didn’t get to the kids books which is also a huge collection.  So I bent the rules a bit, because technically these should have been out with our books too.  I am planning to do that next and find every child book and finish the job.

I hope you have enjoyed following along as we interperet the book as a group and each share our experience in cleaning.  Please visit back again next Sunday as we do the category I am most excited about! Papers! Check out the other ladies and their progress below….

Have a great week friends!