21:01 – Books

2017, 21 Day Challenge, Declutter, Projects, Read a book program 3 Minutes

2017-21-day-challenge-logo

Yesterday I mentioned I was going to start a new 21 day declutter challenge, to kick start another declutter year. Guess what.. that makes this day ONE 🙂

And what better to start, but with the most difficult thing in the world to declutter… books!

Hold on.. did you say books?

Yepp.. your heard right.. I’m starting with books.

You have most likely all heard about KonMari and how you should keep only the things that brings you JOY!

Well.. if I’m am going to follow KonMari on this, I will be in big trouble, as ALL my books brings me joy. So I figured I will have to go about it differently.

LET’S BACKTRACK A LITTLE

Back in 2014, I started reading myself through my bookshelves, and called it my “Read a book program“. The idea was to read one of my books, grade it, and depending on the grade it got, either keep it or get rid of it.

When I started my “read a book program” I would sort the books into the following categories:

Books I love
Only books I love are keepers and deserve a place in my bookshelves. These are the ones that I will read over and over again, or they are part of a special collection, they have sentimental value, are an absolute keep for reference/work/hobby reasons or I just absolutely have to keep for one reason or another.

Books I like
Books I like, but which are not quite in the “I love” category, gets donated/tossed or sold. I did/do however check if they can be bought as Kindle e-books first.

Books that didn’t excite me
Out the door – either as donate/toss or sell.

HOW DID THIS GO? 

I did really good during 2014 and 2015, getting rid of quite a few books (about 1/3 of my collection). 2016 however, I hardly read a book 😦

So I really think it’s time to start up my “Read a book program” again.

I have an overall goal when comes to my books. 
My goal (sometime into the future) is to have most of my books as e-books (kindles)

There are two reasons for this,
1. My books will use less space in the house
2. It will be easy to bring my books with me when I travel the world (which is another dream of mine)

BACK TO DAY ONE AGAIN

To kick start the whole BOOK thing, I figured an initial run through my books might be a good idea. I’ve just taken a serious look at them, and lo and behold.. I DID find a few that I’m quite sure I wont be reading again anytime soon (if ever) 😉 I checked, and they are all on kindle, so here we are..

One run through my bookshelves = 22 books leaving the house

books-bw-2

Since I’m picking up on my reading program again, with the intention of “emptying my shelves”, I’m sure you will see a few more books leaving this house in 2017 (at least I hope so).

I will keep some of my absolute LOVES (and some that I like and can’t get as e-books, yep, I have a few of those too), and in general follow my old rules.

What I do for all the books I handle is; I write down the title and author, the grade I have given them, can they be bought as kindle books? I do this regardless of if they are loved, liked or discarded. I’m thinking it will help me get rid of more books, and the grades will tell me if they are worth getting as kindles later.

Also, this time I will try to be a bit more ruthless than I have been in the past. Hopefully this will help me reach my 2017 goal, of 100 books out-the-door!

I know this is not a lot of books, but I told you the books brings me JOY, right? And since I have culled my bookshelves several times before (I mean.. seriously culled them over and over and over again), my bookshelves consists of pretty much only books that I love/like!

For now though – as a start – and on day one – 22 books out-the-door 🙂

 

 

Published by Anne Lene @ MinimalistSometimes

Published

26 thoughts on “21:01 – Books”

  1. Good luck, Anne!

    I used to keep EVERY book and just kept buying more bookcases to accommodate them. Then we had a basement flood and had to empty everything out of the smallest room in the house to remove the carpet. It took forever because of BOOKS, BOOKS, and more BOOKS.

    And it hit me that I would NEVER read most of them again (that’s why they were in the basement).
    So I donated them to a book sale ~ 7 HUGE shopping bags of books gone.

    I continued to whittle away at my collection, reducing both the number of books and the number of bookcases.
    Now all my books fit on less than 2 bookshelves. YAY!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I know you have had to go through your books and other stuff after the flood, and I still cringe thinking about it. What a sad affair. I have however kind off gotten the feeling that you view the flood as a “blessing in disguise”? From your comments before. And now you are down to less than 2 bookshelves, how great is that!

      I have reduced my books from about 1500 down to somewhere between 300- 350 (including counting my grandparents and parents old children/school books that I have keep for sentimental reasons). I’m hoping to get ALL my books down to less than 100 eventually (included all the inherited ones) we will see.. for now.. I’m concentrating on MY books.. and I’ll tackle the inherited ones later.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. I feel the same way about books! Started decluttering my home and left the books for last as it would have been too emotional and time consuming to go through them. It feels like a sin to toss any book, so I place them (a few at a time) in donation boxes each time I call for pick up. I don’t own a Kindle and can’t imagine reading without anticipating what is coming on the next page, as well as the feeling the paper underneath my finger tips!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I love the feel of paper books myself which is why I’m having such a difficult time with them all, but as I mostly have the paperback versions, I think I can manage to reduce some. I have to admit, kindle is not to bad.. I still manage to get all excited about what’s coming next 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. Awesome! Books were hard for us. We ended up removing close to 1000. We could probably get rid of more. I like the grade/kindle idea. Off to make a spreadsheet!!

    One thing we found – the “reference” books are not really needed now that so much is online. That really helped us remove a fair number pretty quickly.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. I use the internet quite a bit myself, so I hardly have any reference books left. It’s mostly fiction, and I have found I get just about as engrossed in a good book on Kindle as I do on paper, even though I prefer paper books 🙂 At one time in my life I think I had about 1500 books, I’m down in the 3 hundreds now, and still working my way down… we will see where I end. I DO have some inherited ones I won’t ever get rid off, and since they are after all books.. I guess I need to count them as well 😉

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  5. Books are the only things I’ve regretted parting with, but this is because my collection consists of mostly non-fiction and of the few I got rid of I found I later wanted them for reference, I’m also not short of space yet! If I had book shelves full of paperbacks that I’d read some time back I think this would perhaps be easier… (I’ve seen plenty of other people’s collections of old paperbacks with faded spines… not pretty)… we can’t keep telling ourselves “I will one day read that again…”! My book collection “sparks joy”, I just try and make sure I don’t acquire books quicker than I can read them. Good luck 😉

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. I think books are the only thing that I wouldnt be able to part with (( Unfortunately due to constant movements, I just cant afford buying books( So my collection is on Kindle. However from recent travels to our homes ( both me and my husband are from different countries and we live in a third one 😀 ) I insisted to bring few books…in a carry-on, super heavy lol
    But good luck to your challenge! Will be interesting to follow 🙂 Also let us know what you decide to keep and what to part with!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. good luck! i am also doing a book cull. I just threw out 15 books this week and will be throwing out more this year! I have found that as I age, the less some books appeal to me to keep. I also don’t want much clutter so I can easily pack up and put things in storage for our travel dreams!! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I’s like that for me too.. I find my taste change, which is why i’m “reading myself out of my bookshelves”. I’ll pick up a book, read it (or not.. if it turns out I no longer care for the book) and then get rid off it. Unless it’s just so darn good I just HAVE to keep it 😉
      I have cleared quite a bit over the years that way. This year I’m hoping on being even more ruthless than before.. we will just have to cheer each other on 🙂 And I’m with you on the travel.. it’s what my ultimate goal is as well.. being able to pack up and easily bring with me what I need in a small backpack.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  8. 22 books is a lot of books! I agree they are hard to get rid of. I’m a very slow reader so it’s hard for me to finish a book in a month but that’s my goal for 2017.. one book a month! Hopefully once I’m done reading them, I’ll be able to get rid of some of them.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I’ve started up again on reading my books.. hopefully this means I’ll get rid off quite a few this year. Fortunately I’m a reasonably fast reader, I just need to find the “time”.. it goes in spurts.. I did three books in one week in January, but the last week.. no books.. gotta get back at it 😉

      But a goal of one a month.. is a great goal. I like it.. and I think I might just join you.. I should be able to do twelve 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  9. Pingback: Double 7 – Friday! | Minimalist Sometimes

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.