
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

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 🙂
Like it? You are welcome to share it :)
Like this:
Like Loading...