My first step to do this is always to declutter my bookcases. I buy books a lot quicker than I read them, and I also do a lot of my reading on my Kindle, so my bookcases can start to get crazy really quickly. At the minute my main bookcase has books crammed in wherever they'll fit, haphazardly stacked on the edge of the shelves, and it's making me stressed out just looking at it. I love books, I do, but at some point I have to admit that I'll never read half the books on that case and just get rid of them.
But how does one decide what stays and goes? This is something I struggled with a lot the first time I needed to declutter, or unhaul, my books, so I'm going to put my process down here so that maybe it'll help someone else.
1. Completely empty your bookcases:
If you have more than one bookcase I'd recommend doing this one at a time, or else you'll have no space to sort through your books. This is a good way of seeing what you're actually working with (sometimes the amount of books is enough of a shock to motivate you) and it also gives you a chance to give your shelves a good clean and dust.
2. Stack your books by genre:
Go through your books and make separate piles for each genre that you have. For me these are usually Non-Fiction, Memoirs, YA, Adult fiction, and reference/textbooks. Having the big pile of books separated into smaller piles will make the job easier because you'll be focusing on a small task rather than a huge one.
3. Sort through each pile:
Now sit with each pile, pick up a book, and just decide if you want to read it or if it's just not for you anymore. If you need to, flick through the first few pages. If you don't feel drawn in then it's time to get rid, but don't use this time to force yourself to read, sometimes things just aren't meant to be.
4. Put away and reconsider:
When you're putting the books back on their shelves, take time with each book again to make sure you're sure you want to keep it. Are you definitely going to read it? To make it easier next time, I like to designate my top shelf to "Books I'm going to read". If I haven't picked a book up from this shelf between declutters then I know it's time to let go, I'm just not that into it.
An important thing to note here is, once you've put a book in the donation/give away pile, it stays there. This is a top rule. If you have purposefully placed it there, it's gone, it no longer belongs to you. Be ruthless.
I hope this does help someone else to declutter their books. I'll be posting updates about the rest of my effort, but this is the one I most struggled with the first time around so I wanted to go more in depth to ease that for someone else.
Remember, a book won't be hurt if you give it away. Someone else might find happiness in it's pages.
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