Clutter series: Where stuff hides...

Since Ryan and I have started to try and pair down our belongings I have begun to notice all the crazy places that my stuff hides. I will be focusing a couple of posts on where I found stuff and what I did to sort and get rid of it.

The first place we tackled was our 2 bookcases. We decided that we wanted to get all of our books down to one bookcase. This doesn't seem like a huge goal at first glance, but for us it was a place to start.

The first thing we did was a quick first sweep of the shelves and pulled out all the books that first caught our eye and could go. For me this included books I had already read and didn't want to read again, books I had for a long time and had still never read, and books that I had borrowed and could be returned to their original owners.

Just by doing this we got rid of probably 20 books.

Next it got harder. My mom is a librarian by trade, so she imparted to me a great love of reading and books. So I had a lot of books that I had read many, many times, but didn't want to get rid of, because I love them, they mean something to me.

I remember packing my copy of Pride and Prejudice when I went to France in high school. I remember reading it sitting on a bench outside Notre Dame : that EXACT book. How can I let that go? For now I didn't, I couldn't.

I believe being a minimalist doesn't mean getting rid of everything you own, it means getting rid of the stuff that doesn't matter to you, that doesn't deserve the precious space of your home or your heart. For me Pride and Prejudice was something to save. For now.

I kept going through the shelves over and over. A book a couldn't get rid of on the 3rd pass, by the 5th pass got tossed. It started to feel really good.

Ryan had a different kind of debate. Most of his books were instructional text books. When going through his books he asked himself "how often do I reference this book" or "what use do they have for me now or in the future". Books about hobbies he was once interested in got tossed, out of date books that now had more current information got tossed.

Using this method we ditched 4 boxes of books and now have just one book case with all of the books we own.

One of the other benefits was that now we had space on the shelves to display some of favorite items and family photos. Also there is now a place on the bottom shelf for our cats to curl up on, they love to snuggle in tight places.

Everyone benefits!