Declutterers - can we talk *gasp* books and curriculum?

[amyable]

I think I have a basic handle on clothes and toys in our small-ish house -- although I'm convinced they multiply in the night when I'm not looking. But the BOOKS! I have given away a bunch already, but it still doesn't seem like enough. Using Sonlight as our curriculum for 6 years didn't help! :lol:

 

I try to only keep the "keepers" but A) I don't have time to thoroughly read all of them and decide if book X is better than book Y, B) I like (need?) them to be able to take a book on planets, or birds, or verbs :lol: off the shelf *when the mood strikes them* and learn something, as a few of my kids especially only retain when they are interested!, and C) sometimes they ALL look like keepers to me. Oh, and D) I've got kids from 13 to 3 at wildly different reading levels, abilities... to cater to each one takes room.

 

But it's too much for our circumstances right now.

 

Do other people have the same issues? I know I can't be the only one!

 

What is your criteria for keeping things? Has anyone gone DRASTIC and gotten it down to, say, one bookshelf? For several kids? What kind of curriculum do you use?

 

Any good ways to contain the book clutter or get kids to return books where they belong?

 

Alternately, how about creative places to store books? :bigear:

[garddwr]

OK, I'll give this a whirl.

 

Books are my greatest "clutter" challenge as well. They're the only thing I struggle to give away. I've actually got a couple boxes full in the back of my car right now, to be donated to the thrift store. Here's how I motivate myself:

With curriculum and other homeschool books: I find it easier to let go of these if I feel they will help someone. I've found it is easier for me to be generous with money than things, so I have to actively work to change my thinking. I organized a homeschool curriculum swap for my local group, and it was a little easier to let go of things if I thought they would go to another homeschool family who needed them--why should they sit cluttering up my shelves when they could be used?

The other way I have motivated myself, not just with books/curriculum, is to give a "tithe" of my stuff to help a good cause (most of it goes to the thrift store that serves as a job training service). I found that just the concept of tithing was motivating to me--we tithe of our money to our church, and I'm happy to have it go to such a great cause. I'm trying to give away 1/10th of my stuff for a good cause as well.

My general criteria for what to give/what to keep is to ask myself "is this currently a blessing or a burden to my family?" -if it is a blessing, we keep it. If it is a burden, it goes--unless it is a) highly valuable and will be a blessing again in the not-to-distant future, or b) a special family keepsake (like journals, photo albums). I don't usually sell things--it's a big commitment of time and effort and stress, for a relatively small return. The "soul satisfaction" I get from giving is worth more to me than the money I might get for something.

 

As for organizing the books that I keep, I put colored stickers on the spines: Yellow for literature and general children's books, Dark Green for Science, Red for History and Geography, Blue for Math, Pink for foreign language, White for religion. That pretty much takes care of any books the children will use. Everything else gets a lime green sticker, and most of it goes out of the children's reach (except for a few reference books), where I can keep it organized as I like. This includes all my homeschooling "how to" books, parenting and relationship books, cookbooks, etc. I designate a place--a shelf, series of shelves, or entire bookcase--for each type of put--and put a colored sticker on the shelves themselves (this way the children know where things go, and even the littlest ones can put the books away). I try to limit the number of books on the shelves. Everything else goes in my garage (we live in a dry climate, so don't have trouble with mildew etc.) We have an old set of kitchen cabinets attached to our garage walls, and several of those are full of books. Others are in clear plastic bins (about 16-18 quart size) with labels.

It's not perfect, but it's an approach to order!

 

--Sarah

[garddwr]

OK, I'll give this a whirl.

 

Books are my greatest "clutter" challenge as well. They're the only thing I struggle to give away. I've actually got a couple boxes full in the back of my car right now, to be donated to the thrift store. Here's how I motivate myself:

With curriculum and other homeschool books: I find it easier to let go of these if I feel they will help someone. I've found it is easier for me to be generous with money than things, so I have to actively work to change my thinking. I organized a homeschool curriculum swap for my local group, and it was a little easier to let go of things if I thought they would go to another homeschool family who needed them--why should they sit cluttering up my shelves when they could be used?

The other way I have motivated myself, not just with books/curriculum, is to give a "tithe" of my stuff to help a good cause (most of it goes to the thrift store that serves as a job training service). I found that just the concept of tithing was motivating to me--we tithe of our money to our church, and I'm happy to have it go to such a great cause. I'm trying to give away 1/10th of my stuff for a good cause as well. I don't usually sell things--I find that the time and stress involved are not usually worth the small return, and my heart is so much happier when I just give.

My general criteria for what to give/what to keep is to ask myself "is this currently a blessing or a burden to my family?" -if it is a blessing, we keep it. If it is a burden, it goes--unless it is a) highly valuable and will be a blessing again in the not-to-distant future, or b) a special family keepsake (like journals, photo albums).

 

As for organizing the books that I keep, I put colored stickers on the spines: Yellow for literature and general children's books, Dark Green for Science, Red for History and Geography, Blue for Math, Pink for foreign language, White for religion. That pretty much takes care of any books the children will use. Everything else gets a lime green sticker, and most of it goes out of the children's reach (except for a few reference books), where I can keep it organized as I like. This includes all my homeschooling "how to" books, parenting and relationship books, cookbooks, etc. I designate a place--a shelf, series of shelves, or entire bookcase--for each type of book--and put a colored sticker on the shelves themselves (this way the children know where things go, and even the littlest ones can put the books away). I try to limit the number of books on the shelves. Everything else goes in my garage (we live in a dry climate, so don't have trouble with mildew etc.) We have an old set of kitchen cabinets attached to our garage walls, and several of those are full of books. Others are in clear plastic bins (about 16-18 quart size) with labels.

It's not perfect, but it's an approach to order!

[Tarreymere]

<gasp>

 

Downsize our books? Nooooooo!

 

Well, actually I did 'downsize' slightly over ten thousand paperbacks about fifteen years ago and I have regretted it ever since. These days I have a better solution: I just pass some of the books around to my adult daughters and their families. I keep the ones I can't bear to part with, and I have a shot at least of getting back the ones I have passed around. One of my daughters is a hoarder (not kidding) so I know whatever makes it to her house will be there forever.

 

No creative solutions here. Sorry.

[garddwr]

Huh, I tried to edit that last post (to correct a typo) and it posted twice. Odd...

[Jennifer]

When I declutter books I ask myself:

Is the book available at the library?

Is the book available used on Amazon for a decent price if I decide I MUST have it again?

 

If the answer to one is yes, out it goes. I'm only getting rid of 2-3 books a week...it makes it less painful.

 

Jennifer

[shanvan]

You are not the only one with these issues. I thought I was the only one! Recently I did get rid of about 20 grocery bags full of books. They were a mixture of school type books and books from my own collection. My criteria for deciding was to ask myself the following

 

 

1. would I realistically ever read it again?
   
2. will the library be likely have a book that covers the same topic in the same way?
   
3. are we really attached to this book?
   
4. what will happen if I get rid of it--will we even remember we had it?
   
5. can it bless someone else more than it is likely to bless us sitting on the shelf?
   

 

I've gotten rid of most fiction (in my own collection) except for classics and a few books I thought were too good to let go. Non fiction I haven't read and am not likely to read went too. No more keeping it on my shelf for reference. Our library is only 10 minutes away.

 

Now, I've only done this with our downstairs bookshelves. I have yet to tackle the upstairs and the curriculum, but I plan to this summer. I'm also going to go through everything a second time. I figure I'll be able to let go of even more the second time around. HTH

 

Shannon

 

 

 

[GoVanGogh]

Garden books have always been my weakness.

Two years ago, I went through and gave away or sold a number of 'specialty' books, ie: those about one garden plant. (Except roses. I kept my rose books.) I figured a book only on, say, daylilies would be out of date very quickly.

I put the rest of my garden books back on the shelves. Two years later, I still hadn't read or looked at the majority of these books. It made it easier now to do a massive decluttering of those books, knowing that in the past 48 months I had not once been sat down to read a single garden book. I sold about 1/2 of my collection a few weeks ago and - so far - have not regretted it.

 

I also got rid of many of my homeschool 'how-to' books, those that I bought when we were first homeschooling and I wanted to read about every single homeschool method. I kept a few (like the WTM!) that I use as reference and those that I like to re-read for inspiration.

I didn't touch my husband's book collection. :tongue_smilie: But I did go through many of our child's books. I got rid of books he has never expressed an interest in (ie: Flat Stanley, Magic Tree House) and the early readers he used 3+ years ago. If I had multiple books on a single topic, like birds, I got rid of the 'lowest' book (either age-wise or content-wise).

 

I still have a houseful of books. It is hard to visualize that I got rid of six or so boxes of books.

[SailorMom]

This is always a tough one for me as well....

I currently have boxes of books that I haven't been able to part with yet.

Of course, we did already take 3 big boxes to the used book store at the library (profits go to the "friends of the library" organization).

Any new books that aren't reference materials or text books we now buy on our Nooks, and we're trying to only keep books that we have a special, uh, relationship for. Like Harry Potter books, or Lord of the Rings. There are some books that I will go back and read every few years....

Also - I keep the ones I want to make sure my kids read and any that I consider classics.

[amyco]

It's hard to know what to do with books. But I've discovered that my dc don't really take former school books off the shelf and randomly read them, fiction or non-fiction. Apparently once anything has been assigned it will never be read again. :glare: Plus they age out of things, so it's been easier to let go of these books.

 

Most of the other books we keep are either sentimental, hard to find/out of print, or expensive to replace. Plus I have this feeling that with e-book explosion, we should hang on to them and not assume we'll be able to replace them if we want, which has been making it difficult to let go of non-school books.

 

The ones we do let go of either get donated to the library or taken to the used book store.

[Amira]

We have about one bookcase worth of books now. I did it because we move so often, especially overseas, and we couldn't keep moving the books around. I gave away or sold about 400 and scanned another 600. Ebooks are so much easier for us.

[CalicoKat]

I think I have a basic handle on clothes and toys in our small-ish house -- although I'm convinced they multiply in the night when I'm not looking. But the BOOKS! I have given away a bunch already, but it still doesn't seem like enough. Using Sonlight as our curriculum for 6 years didn't help! :lol:

 

I try to only keep the "keepers" but A) I don't have time to thoroughly read all of them and decide if book X is better than book Y, B) I like (need?) them to be able to take a book on planets, or birds, or verbs :lol: off the shelf *when the mood strikes them* and learn something, as a few of my kids especially only retain when they are interested!, and C) sometimes they ALL look like keepers to me. Oh, and D) I've got kids from 13 to 3 at wildly different reading levels, abilities... to cater to each one takes room.

 

But it's too much for our circumstances right now.

 

Do other people have the same issues? I know I can't be the only one!

 

What is your criteria for keeping things? Has anyone gone DRASTIC and gotten it down to, say, one bookshelf? For several kids? What kind of curriculum do you use?

 

Any good ways to contain the book clutter or get kids to return books where they belong?

 

Alternately, how about creative places to store books? :bigear:

 

I felt like I was jumping in the deep end when I started listing my curriculum. But once I got going I gained momentum. I've sold approx. 30 books in the last week. :D My criteria? If I haven't used it or touched it in the last year and we're not scheduled to use it in the future then it's gone!

 

I've used For Sale boards & yahoo and Paperbackswap.com

[CalicoKat]

I felt like I was jumping in the deep end when I started listing my curriculum. But once I got going I gained momentum. I've sold approx. 30 books in the last week. :D My criteria? If I haven't used it or touched it in the last year and we're not scheduled to use it in the future then it's gone!

 

I've used For Sale boards & yahoo and Paperbackswap.com

The empty shelves mean less boxes to pack. I've got at least 5 empty shelves now.

[Jeannie in NJ]

we have our house on the market so the idea of moving 3000 plus books got me motivated. I decided that dc did not need 15 books, on birds, ditto planets and just about every other topic so kept only a couple of books on each topic. Also we used sonlight from k to core 7 so we got rid of all books that were not very favorites. Now for my books, I am only keeping all my James Michener novels as I like to re read them and the copies at our library all in horrible shape. I also kept some of my favorite bios. My dh is actually about the worst of us, he has 2 large bookcases of science fiction that I can't get him to go thru.