I personally do not like clutter. I'm not a minimalist by any means, but I prefer to have fewer things and designated places for those things to go. I will be implementing some of her tricks into how I store and organize my possessions, but I don't think I'll use this method too precisely for my clothes, household items, etc. as I don't keep enough of those around to feel burdened by them.
However, I did use the KonMari method to purge my book collection. So, I thought I would do a blog post on how that went, what my collection looks like now, and how I organized and cataloged my books.
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Starting Point: First, I'll give you an idea of what my collection looked like when I started. I had a total of 212 books, not including comic books/graphic novels. For some, that's excessive and for others, that's practically nothing. The number of books I own doesn't bother me, the fact that I own books I don't really like or want does bother me. For this amount of books, I thought it would take me at least a day to sort through them using this method, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I managed to finish in a little over an hour.
Decluttering: So how did I do it? Following the KonMari method, I placed all of my books into a pile on my floor. I handled each one and asked myself if it sparked joy. For some, I didn't even need to ask myself this question because I already knew that it didn't, those were the ones that were easy to 'discard'. The hard ones were the ones that I bought for the cover or because it was popular, and though I liked it then, I no longer am interested in it or it's series, etc. But, if it wasn't something I loved or it didn't bring me joy, I put it in the discard pile.
Unread Books: For the books I owned that I'd already read, this was a simple enough method to follow. But what about my unread books? For these, Marie Kondo suggests you discard them. She claims that if you haven't read it by now, then you probably won't period. I think this idea might work for the general non-reader, but for people who read frequently and buy books on a regular basis, it wouldn't make sense to get rid of a book you've recently bought, just because you didn't read it right away.
My TBR Rule: I personally have 63 unread books sitting around. So, what I did was adapt her idea to fit my specific reader needs. I sorted through the unread books and any I was still excited for, I kept. The ones I found myself no longer interested in or felt the need to convince myself to keep, I discarded. I also made a new rule for myself. Any book I acquired prior to 2018, I will have to read within 2018, with the exception of books in a series and classic literature. If I have multiple books in a series unread, I have to read at least the first book in 2018, if it was bought in 2017 or before. Any books I acquire in 2018 will have to be read within one year from when I acquired them. I've made a spreadsheet to help track the bought-dates of books I've gotten so far this year.
Catalog/Organize: The way I've cataloged my books is pretty simple. I made a document online where I've listed the title of each book, it's author/s, and what keyword I would use to pair the book with others. For example, the way I organize my books isn't by following any one method. I don't organize all my books by genre, author, or alphabetically. I use whatever different groupings make sense for my collection. Some books are shelved together because they share the same author, whereas another shelf might just be where I keep my non-fiction, but within that shelf, those will be separated by topic; feminism, politics, memoir, etc. I also separate YA from non-YA, so there isn't really one way I keep my books, I just do whatever makes sense and throw the miscellaneous books onto their own shelf.
End Result: By the end of all this, I was left with 163 books, meaning I unhauled 49 books. That may not seem like a huge change, but my collection is filled with just the books that I really love and I'm very happy with how it looks now. I will be doing another post soon on those books that I unhauled and why I chose to unhaul them, so look out for that.
✿ If you have been wanting to purge your shelves and unhaul some books or you think the KonMari method would be useful for your other possessions, I encourage you to try it out, I'm pleased with the results. If you have tried this method, please comment as I would love to hear your experience with it, or subscribe to BookSass. Thanks for Reading!
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