This Guest Post on using the Kindle and other means to declutter your bookshelf is courtesy Lorie Marrero, author of the bestselling Clutter Diet Book and Blog. More details on Lorie at the end of the post.
Clutter Diet BlogDeclutter Your BookShelf
If you are reading this, you are most likely a Kindle owner and therefore a bibliophile—a book lover. Before the Kindle came along, you probably amassed quite a collection of books throughout your life, and you may be short on space. Here are five ways you can scale down the stacks:
- If you buy on the Kindle, buy only on the Kindle (or your preferred eBook reader). The Kindle is one of the best clutter-reducing devices—imagine the saved space of one slender device over 1500 physical books! Try to avoid adding to your storage space problems by also buying a hard copy of the book. If you don’t know how to highlight and take notes on the Kindle, take a moment to read the user guide and find out how easy it is to annotate your digital books.
- Release your books into the wild. Take books you no longer want that are cluttering up your shelves, register them on BookCrossing.com, and leave them around in public places for other people to take. That’s right, just leave your books on park benches, in hotels, in coffee shops… People that find your books can look them up on the BookCrossing site and see what their journey has been. They will see a label or handwritten note with a unique serial number, and the person who found it can log in and write about where they found the book and whether they liked it, etc. And if the book is special to you, you can find out what has happened to it and see how your generosity has helped others. It’s “catch & release” for books!
- Go to a used bookstore to sell your books. Resist the urge to take “store credit” for the books instead of cash—try to prevent more books from coming in.
- Donate your books of a specific subject to a special organization. If you have a lot of books about history, donate them to a local historical association. If you have a lot of biographies about women leaders, donate them to a school for girls. Don’t, however, get so stuck on finding the perfect home that you delay the donation for too long. Your public library is terrific for most general donations and helps many people.
- List your books for sale as “Used” on Amazon.com or eBay. If you don’t have time to monitor the sales and make shipments, see if you can delegate this project to an assistant or even a neighborhood teenager in exchange for a commission on the sales.
Overall, be selective about the books you keep as they do take up a lot of space. Remember that you can almost always get access to books again at your local library, so there is no need to try to create a full library of your own forever!
BIO:
Professional Organizer Lorie Marrero is the author of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life, which hit #8 on Kindle’s nonfiction list in January 2009. The Clutter Diet Blog has been in the top ten bestselling overall subscriptions on the Amazon Kindle since September 2008, and is #1 in the Lifestyle category. Lorie is the creator of ClutterDiet.com, an innovative program allowing anyone to get expert help at an affordable price. She has been a spokesperson for Microsoft, Brother label makers, and FedEx Office, and she is a sought-after expert for national media such as CNBC, Good Housekeeping, WGN News and Woman’s Day.
Filed under: kindle
