Friday, June 3, 2011

1. Declutter Book Shelf in Spare Bedroom

Whoo boy... I've been debating about whether to follow through on this idea of altering 16 little things over the course of 100 days. Do I really want to take on decluttering something everyday? And all the other 15 things that I listed? Sigh...

I was looking at this bookshelf this morning and thinking... there are books on there that I could let go of. For sure, there are. Books that I've read and kept mostly.

The 100-Mile Diet. Great book... will I ever read it again? Probably not.

Non-fiction books about Harry Potter... the spirituality, the theology... etc. About seven of those books. I used them about 6 years ago to do some seminars when the movies and books were all the rage. Do I need them now? Probably not.

The Golden Compass trilogy - I've only read the first book... and not the other two. Will I read them? Probably... so that is a keep.

Decluttering books... they motivate me and inspire me to declutter. When I feel like things are getting out of hand in my life... I just pull one off the shelf, read it for a bit, and I'm good to go. Have I re-read them all? No. Are there some I could let go of? For sure...

Nature books, hiking books, outdoor books. Definitely a keep... But there might be a few things I could let go of...

Genealogy books - now these ones I need to take a closer look at. Genealogy for Dummies... well, I can probably let go of that one as I am no longer a beginner at this... So, definitely a few that could go.

Should I aim for a number? How about... 20 books? Could I let go of 20 books off of that shelf? There are probably 100 books on the book shelf, so that would be 20%. If we go by the old rule of thumb that we use 80% of our things 20% of the time... and only use 20% of our things 80% of the time... then I should be very much able to let go of a piddly 20%!

Oh, and there is another bookshelf in that room too... a little two shelved nightstand... with paperbacks doubled up on the shelves. These are my most favourite paperbacks that I read over and over again... But there might be a couple that I could let go of... maybe... I'll have to check...

The truth is, we outgrow things after a while. We grow into different books. We grow into different music. We grow into different art. We grow into a different exercise regimen. We just grow. So it makes sense that we would be able to declutter and let go of things. If we keep on holding onto the things that we've outgrown well... that could get kind of messy!

Well... the long and the short of it is... 20 books have been decluttered. Not too bad for 15 minutes worth of work. There's a bit more space on the bookshelves and a bit more space in my life.

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