Are you an avid reader? Do you have piles of books that haven’t seen the light of day in years? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you’ll want to pay special attention to this week’s task in the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge. This week, we’re decluttering books and magazines.
This post was originally published in April 2021 and republished in April 2024.
If you’re a book lover, this might be a difficult task for you. But, like every decluttering task, once you get started you might wonder why you were hanging on to a lot of your books for so long.
Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.
What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?
In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.
You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.
Are you ready for week 16? Let’s get decluttering!
Week 16 – Decluttering books and magazines
From a clutter perspective, books aren’t a real problem area for me. I have some favourites and collectibles that I hang on to, but I mostly read books and then pass them along.
We have 2 main bookshelves in our house. I keep my favourites in a small shelf beside my chair in the family room. Then we have two tall bookshelves in our home office. One of them is full of photo albums and scrapbooks. The other one has reference books, a few of my books but mostly my husband’s books. Our daughters also have bookshelves in their rooms, but those books belong to them so they’re not part of my decluttering exercise.
Similar to my closet decluttering where I set a goal to fit everything in my bedroom closet and dresser, my goal for book decluttering was to fit all of my books in the small shelf in the family room. To make room, some things had to go.
This week’s decluttering and organizing tips
Decluttering books can be an overwhelming task. Here are my tips to make the job easier.
Apply the container theory
- Dana K. White’s container theory works well here. If you have piles of books everywhere, commit to keeping only what will fit in your bookshelf. Put your favourites on the shelf first. When you’re out of space, you’ve got some decisions to make.
Sort your books into categories
It helps to sort your books into categories. Some categories are quick wins. Others require more thought. Here’s my approach to the 8 categories of books.
- Collectible and picture books. I have quite a lot of books about Queen and my other favourite musical artists, and Coronation Street (my guilty pleasure TV show). For me, those are keepers, so they went back on the shelf first.
- Novels. Are you hanging on to novels because you “might read them again”? But will you? Really? Be honest and put them in the donate pile.
- Reference books like dictionaries, atlases, and encyclopedias. Ask yourself if they’re current. If they are outdated, get rid of them. Even if they are current, if your first instinct is to check Google maps or dictionary.com when you need to look something up, put them in the donate pile too.
- Textbooks. Last year, when I did my first round of decluttering in the basement, I found dozens of old textbooks. I kept a couple of French grammar textbooks. The rest I happily got rid of.
- Magazines are another quick win. I usually read them and then pass them along or recycle them. The exception was commemorative and collectible magazines. I had a large collection of them, so it was time to purge. As an example, I had 6 different commemorative magazines from Prince William and Kate’s wedding. I kept one and gave the others to my mother-in-law to look at and then recycle.
- High school yearbooks. This is a tough one. I don’t look at them very often, but I do get them out and leaf through them from time to time. I decided to keep them in my small bookshelf. If you’re not nostalgic, these might be a quick win for you.
- Children’s books. As I mentioned, I’m mostly leaving my daughters’ and my husband’s books for them to sort through. There were a few of the girls’ books on the bookshelf in our home office that I did get rid of because they have no sentimental value.
- Photo albums. I am a huge fan of photos and used to be an avid scrapbooker. A true minimalist would say there’s no reason to keep physical photos because you can just keep digital copies. If that works for you, great. But my photo albums are staying put! I love to look through them and I have no intention of parting with them.
Make a plan to control the clutter
- After the initial purge, it’s important to control the clutter. Here are some easy ways to do that:
- Switch to digital subscriptions and e-books.
- Borrow books from the library instead of buying them.
- Follow the one-in-one-out rule. When you buy a new book, choose one to get rid of.
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What I got rid of
When all was said and done, I got rid of 49 items from my bookshelves:
- 11 collectible magazines
- 32 books
- 2 posters
- 1 puzzle
- 1 Lego playset
And…this week’s candidates for strangest or most useless items.
- A floppy disk.
- An old, broken phone case.
Best of all, I achieved my goal of fitting all my books in my small bookshelf. Other than photo albums, the only books of mine remaining in our home office bookshelves are work-related reference books. I’ll keep them until I retire, then they can go too!
2024 Update
It has been three years so I’m rebooting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to see how much I can get rid of in 2024.
Even though I’ve been reading a lot more, I’ve added very few physical books to my collection since my first round of decluttering in 2021. Instead of buying books, I use the public library or pick up books from the Little Free Libraries I pass on my walks. If I can’t find what I need there, I opt for an e-book.
I’m retiring in a couple of months, so I thought it was safe to get rid of some of my reference books this time around. In total I removed 9 books from my bookshelves.
So that’s week 16 done and the end of our living room decluttering.
If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!
Do you have any tips for decluttering books and magazines? Tell us below.
My books are a mess…everywhere with notes and scribbles tucked inside. Little bits of momentary “brilliance”, LOL. Finding things in a hurry is a problemmmmmm……thanks for the nudge, Michelle! 😜
Ha ha. Good luck, Vicki. I hear you on the notes and scribbles. 😂
I don’t have piles of anything anymore. I don’t get magazines and I read all my books on my iPad so…
Now that we live in a motor home, I have no room for any kind of pile, lol.
LOL. There’s a lot to be said for smaller spaces.
I love books and would have tons of them if… 1. they weren’t so expensive 2. I had room for them! If on the rare occasion I buy a book it is always used and it has to be one that is so outstanding that I am going to keep it. I only have a few of those. I borrow 95% from the library as ebooks right now. Our library is small so that’s a great option but I really love holding a real book. Our town is planning to build a new library in the heart of town- a nice walking distance for me so I hope they will increase their holdings and I can borrow real books every so often.
I find e-books convenient for travel but, like you, I enjoy holding a real book and turning the pages. That will be wonderful to be able to walk to the library. Our neighbourhood branch of our library has a decent selection but you can request books from other branches, which is great. I love browsing the shelves. When I retire, I’ll probably make a weekly trip to the library.
I switched to an e-reader and the only books I own physically are either signed by the author or are cute coffee table books that I like to flip through. I’m guessing I have less than 20 but I love them
That’s terrific! Between my Kindle and the library, I don’t have very many physical books any more.
Well done, Michelle! I know a number of family members who need to scale down the books!! Such an excellent idea to sort books into categories!
Ha ha. I heard from one of your family members who admitted their obsession! 💖
Oh did you? Hhhhmmm, I wonder who that can be! 😉
He he. I am sure you can guess. 😂
😅
LOL LOL
Ugh I absolutely need to do this. I moved from my parents apartment to my own with 27 banker boxes of books. Then when I got married and we moved into our new house I decluttered half and have since accumulated more. I am a book lover to the max! This will be hard but I gotta make room for our growing lives! 🙏
Books are a definite weakness for a lot of people. Personally, I have difficulty with DVDs and CDs, but we all have our things. It’s okay to keep the books you really love, but if you’ll never read them again and they’re just taking up space, it’s better to let them go.
Lol you found a floppy disc? I gave my neon-colored set away 10+ years ago! The textbooks are the hardest for me to part with, as I’m always wondering if I’ll need to study them again in the future
Yes, I couldn’t believe I found a floppy disk! I held on to my textbooks for years, thinking I’d need them. I never did. Anything I need, I can look up online. I just kept a couple of French grammar books.
This is a difficult area for many people. Luckily, I don’t have an attachment to books (and I live close to a library) so after I read something, I happily pass it along. I love that I can get anything I need from our local libraries. The library worries about storing, maintaining, and getting updated copies and I can just enjoy reading a book without the maintenance.😁
I agree, Suzanne. I rediscovered our local library last year and have never looked back. Many libraries are struggling and they offer so many valuable services to the communities they support.
Well done, Michelle. Isn’t it interesting what is left hiding in our bookshelves? They stay there for years and years but why nobody knows!
It’s true. I am finding that with a lot of my decluttering tasks. I am discovering a lot of weird and interesting stuff.
I recently and quite happily purged several reference books I no longer want to free up space to start keeping anthologies I am proudly part of. I also found I had duplicate copies of four books. One collection of duplicate graphic novels in good condition I happily sold on Ebay too. 🙂
That’s great Jaya. Making space for things you really want is a great motivator when it comes to decluttering.
Hey Michelle! Your post is so motivational. as you say, the hardest part of decluttering is that inkling that maybe we might one day want to read it again, or we will need it again. But if you don’t need it or aren’t going to read it this month & it’s taking up space then might as well just get rid of it. Did you donate it to your thrift store? or did you get rid of it in your local buy nothing group?
btw I love that you found an old floppy disk! did you check to see if there was anything on it?
Thanks Helen!
I got rid of a bunch of books on the Buy Nothing group. If no-one claims the others, I will donate them to the thrift store once our current pandemic restrictions are lifted.
The floppy disk was one that came with a book I bought. It had forms related to the book content. I don’t have a disk reader to access it. I wish I did.
Oh no, not books! I’m a terrible hoarder of books! They’re my favourite possessions. I’ve got them stuffed in cupboards, my wardrobe and in my loft!
I think I need to be ruthless but I’m so attached to them 😫
Yes, books are a really hard thing for a lot of people to declutter. A friend emailed me after reading last week’s media post and said she has a book problem. I told her to stay tuned. LOL
I hate to throw books away and it’s fairly easy to find a home for most books. But, honestly, what would I do with outdated 30 year old textbooks? Last year, I posted some of them on the Buy Nothing group and thankfully someone took them off my hands. I guess they make good firestarter. LOL
I think I’m too emotionally attached to them. 😀
We all have our vices! 😂