Being a book lover has many benefits for the body and mind. From stress relief to increased knowledge and being a better human being in general, reading can literally change our lives for the better.
however, for most of us it comes hand in hand with owning many books, which at some point will inevitably become a clutter. learning to sort books is one of the essential skills you need to learn to become a better and more organized reader.
You are reading: How to declutter books
when can you consider your books to be messy?
Before we start learning how to fix the problem, it’s important to have a thorough understanding of the problem. So what exactly is book clutter and how does it affect us and our reading habits?
a clutter, in general, is defined as any space that is not well organized, a place full of things you no longer need or even forgot you have or a small place that contains more things than it would need to contain to continue being usable.
Applying this to books, it’s easy to see that book clutter can mean anything from a disorganized shelf filled with books in random order to a stack of books you never get to read sitting on your coffee table. night, collecting dust. .
the negative impact of clutter on our reading habits
While the negative effects of clutter in our home have been extensively studied and found to be quite serious, no study has focused specifically on book clutter. but even so, some of the effects that readers and cleaning experts have reported (yes, they exist) are:
- You will read less
- You won’t be able to concentrate
- You will start to feel pressure from your reading list
- Not be as effective a reader
As they say, a cluttered desk means a cluttered mind. the same is true when it comes to your bookshelf.
how to order the books?
getting rid of book clutter can be a challenge. Fortunately, there are several ways we can fix the problem and we know them all and soon you will too. Finding the best way to organize your books is a process and will require a certain level of determination, but it will definitely be worth it once you’ve done it.
There are many tips for ordering books, but we’ve created a curated list of the most important ones.
decide to let go
Beginning the process of ordering your books will be an emotional journey for the most part. we tend to become attached to our possessions in general and books hold a special place in our hearts, especially as we tend to associate them with feelings we had and events that took place while we were reading them. Although we may not realize it at first, books have very deep roots in our lives.
That’s why getting rid of book clutter should start with a strong decision on your part. you need to be convinced that you need to order the book and that you are willing to see the whole process through to the end.
think realistically about the books you really need
Once the decision has been made, you need to start planning your cleanup and start envisioning the end result. there are a couple of questions to ask when ordering the books.
what are you clearing? A single bookshelf, a bedside table, or the entire collection of books in your library?
How do you decide which books to keep? start thinking about what you would like to have on hand, what can be put in a less visible and accessible place and what you need to throw away.
Our recommendation is to reserve accessible shelf space for the books you plan to read, keep out of sight the books you’ve read, loved, or plan to read again, and simply get rid of the ones I’ve finished and don’t plan on rereading. revisit it.
move your book collection online
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Living in the 21st century has the advantage of always having the power to own things digitally. If you feel that owning physical books puts a lot of pressure on your daily attempts to maintain a tidy home, buying your favorite titles digitally is a great idea.
Buying an e-reader and e-books actually costs even less than physical ones and keeps your home 100% clutter-free.
Speaking of the 21st century, another great tool you can use to enhance your reading experience and order books is a reading tracker app like basmo.
Among other things that I will explain later, basmo allows you to create virtual bookshelves in the form of book collections or reading lists. This means you can create unlimited collections of book titles you’ve read in the past or plan to read in the future, without cluttering your home at all.
In addition, basmo and all its functions will always be available anywhere and anytime. you just need to reach into your pocket or bag to pull out your phone and everything it has to offer is accessible with a few taps.
Not only that, but it will also make the process of getting rid of paperbacks much easier for you, as you will always have your titles and the notes you make inside the books saved on your mobile device.
set limits for the number of books you save
Once you’ve made your decision on where to store your old and new books, you’ll obviously realize that the number of books each can hold is limited by the space you have.
Determine how many books can be stored on your visible bookshelf and how many can be stored out of sight without making a mess.
organize your books
It may sound counterintuitive, but you’ll have to make a big mess before you can order your books. it will have to get worse to get better.
That said, you must gather all the books you own, sit down next to a large stack of books, take each one and decide its fate. Create smaller stacks for books you want to keep in a conspicuous place, keep out of sight, and throw away or give away.
Remember to keep in mind the default number of books that fit in each section.
use a reading app
Something that can be of great help when it comes to ordering books is, perhaps surprisingly, reading apps like basmo. these little wizards can do a lot of things and some of the features can really help you organize your books and even your reading habits.
take a break from buying new books
Obvious as it may be, it needs to be said. buying new books while the cleaning process is underway is clearly a bad idea. you should refrain from buying new titles for a while, until you have successfully sorted out your book collection.
give away books you no longer need
Now, the cleaning process has left you with a pile of books that you no longer want in your house. you could throw them away, but that would be incredibly wasteful and disrespectful. books must be passed, never thrown away.
Ask your friends and family if they want them, donate them or even resell them if you think they’re worth it. your trash can be someone else’s treasure and since books are knowledge, it’s never a good idea to just throw them away.
think about the future, not the past
An important thing to remember throughout the cleaning process is to always think ahead. do not allow yourself to stay anchored in the past and in the value of your possessions.
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It is much better that you let the way you organize your books symbolize that you live in the present and the future, not in the past. Unless you’ve loved a book and really plan on reading it again, it has no place in your library. that place is reserved for what you plan to read in the future.
use the mustie method
If your book collection is particularly extensive, the suggestions we made above for ordering your bookshelves may not be enough. If that’s the case, there’s a tried and tested method used by libraries for years, called the mustie method. mustie is actually an acronym for:
m = misleading (for old books that present outdated information)
u = ugly (for books that are no longer presentable and cannot be displayed)
s = superseded (a more recent and updated edition has been published or the book may be superseded)
t = trivial (no longer adds any value to your book collection)
i = irrelevant (you are not interested)
e = elsewhere (this does not apply to your personal book collection)
While this may seem like overkill to most of us, people with large and valuable book collections will find this method extremely effective and useful.
how does marie kondo order the books?
If you don’t know who Marie Kondo is, you should know that this Japanese writer and consultant has made a name for herself by teaching others how to better organize and tidy their homes. She published several books on the subject, including the bestseller “The Life-Changing Magic of Decluttering,” and was included in Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” list in 2005.
his philosophy, also known as the konmari method, is to take all the items in a specific category (clothes, books and any other belongings) and hand select only the items that “spark joy”. the original Japanese term for this is “tokimeku”, which roughly translates to “flapping, beating, throbbing”. every item that does not fall into the tokimeku category must be thrown away or donated, removed from the house.
While the method has been tried by millions of people around the world and claims to have changed many lives, the principle applies to books only to a limited extent. As I was explaining before, there is much more emotion involved in owning books or having a collection of books than clothing, for example. And that’s not a bad thing, our emotions are partially responsible for where we are as a species and we need to understand and embrace them rather than eliminate them.
here is a step by step guide to applying marie kondo’s konmari method for ordering books:
- Put all your books together in a stack in the middle of the floor or divide them into categories if your collection is too extensive:
- general books
- children’s books
- magazines
- art books/table books
- practical books
That said, although some principles of the Marie Kondo method can be applied to the process of ordering books, our recommendation is to stick to the way of doing things that we presented above.
using a reading app like basmo can be much more effective than the marie kondo cleaning method. you can create reading lists, book collections that can be adapted to the space you want to allocate to your books, you can edit the lists at any time from anywhere and update them according to your purchases or wishes. cataloging books is easier than ever and that’s a key aspect of the book cleaning aspect that marie kondo’s method doesn’t mention.
conclusion
Learning how to order books is essential if you want to be effective and organized with your books and reading habits. With the help of reading apps like Basmo, you can achieve the results you’ve always dreamed of much more easily than you expected. all it takes is a little determination and a strong desire to preserve your book collection.
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