- To tell you the truth, I was a little bit hesitant to put
this shelf in here when we remodeled, because I kind of thought
this was going to happen. So today let's talk about decluttering
books and magazines and games and how FOMO plays a huge part in it. So I'll
share some tips for decluttering. We'll get through this. We can
get through it fairly quickly. I'll talk about changes I
would like to make to it. And if you want to stick
around to the very end, I'll share a few things that we're
changing with our homeschool this year, how we're keeping it organized
and keeping everyone on track. Well hi, I'm Dawn from The Minimal
Mom. If we haven't met before, I'm married to Tom and we have
four kids ages six through 11, which is how this gets like this. And so this is part of our Mega
Motivation collaboration for August. We are talking all about decluttering
books and magazines and games and all of that kind of
stuff that accumulates. So there's a link to a playlist down
below and I have 20 other friends sharing their best tips and tactics when
it comes to decluttering these somewhat tricky items. So let's break it down a little bit and
talk about why we get hung up with this stuff, why we hang on to it and what
we can do to quickly move past it. So, like I said, I despise this area. Part of it is because my
organizing style is a Ladybug, which means I prefer
stuff to be out of sight. And this is just front and center, open.
It's where we keep books in our house. It's also where the boys keep
some of their art supplies and projects. And it's also where
we keep our homeschooling stuff. So it needs a pass through so we can get
organized and ready for this upcoming school year. But I do want to talk about how do we
declutter books and magazines and that kind of stuff. Alright, so let's talk about books
first. Books can be very tricky, I think for two reasons. One is identity and two is FOMO, or fear of missing out. So books haven't necessarily
been something that have
hung me up too much in the past, but I've had the opportunity
to work with many of you who say, "Books are very important to me." And
I think part of that is the identity piece. When we see ourselves as an
academic, as an avid reader, as a teacher, books are a very
important part of that. And I get it. Like books are magical. I mean,
you can go to another world. You can learn so much.
Books are really cool. But when they get out of control, they move from being really cool
and inspiring to being a big pain in our butt, and often something that we feel guilty
about because we can't keep it organized and we have too much and it looks messy
and we feel bad sometimes because we're not reading them all. And
so that's one piece of it, is that our identity is often wrapped
up in it. And then the second piece is, like I said, FOMO. Fear of missing out. And this applies to both
books and magazines, but we'll talk about magazines
more specifically in a few minutes. And what I mean by that is often, I think,
we look at these books and we think, "Oh, there's valuable
information in there. And if
I don't get that information, then my life might not be as good or
as rich as it could have been if I had that." So we look at books, and again, knowing how they're so full
of information and value and all this stuff. It's easy
to look at it and be like, "I can't get rid of them because
there's stuff in there that I need. And I fear missing out on
that information." And so
that's what can stand in our way, and I think often we don't
understand that. And it seems like, well, I should just be able to declutter
books. What's the big deal? But I do think both of these are very
powerful things that play into it. So then what do we do? So as I've talked to other
people who are book lovers, who have bookshelves and
bookshelves of books, there's two things that
I think are very helpful. So one is to apply the
Container Concept. So this here, this container is where we keep our books. Now it has to hold our homeschooling
stuff and books comfortably, meaning I still need to be able to move
stuff around easily and visually I don't want it jam packed cause
that doesn't feel good. And so usually what is very
helpful is to pull the books down. Which we don't always
recommend this, but in this case, and you can take a shelf or two
at a time, you don't have to do, if you have a huge bookshelves, you
don't have to do it all at once. Take them down and then put them back
in order of your favorites or the ones you reference most frequently,
whatever criteria you want to use, but put them back in the
order of most useful, most likely to read again in
the future or classic favorites. And so by doing this, it's
helping to break it down. Because when we look at a whole bookshelf,
we're like, "They're all important. They're all my favorites. That's why I've kept them." But when
we actually go through this process of taking them off and
putting our favorites back, then it causes us to rank them. Because they're not all
actually equally our favorite. We're always going to have some that
are more special to us than others. So we go through putting our favorites
back first and then what's left we can decide to do with, whether we want to
donate them or decide to resell them. And what I want to encourage you
with, with books is that to me, it seems like a waste if they sit
on a shelf and are never read. So if it's a book that you
haven't referenced in a long time, you don't plan on referencing,
that you're just not using, I think it's so much better to donate
it someplace where it could get used and read than to just let it
waste away on our shelves. But that's just how I look at it. And
again, I'm not like a huge book person, so you can take it or leave it. Alright, so I know I just said that I'm
not really a book person, like whatever, but there are actually a few books that
I'm knowing now I should declutter, but it's kind of difficult.
Like this book, the Whole30, I'm more into intermittent fasting now, but this was really helpful for
us at a time. Like we've done it, and it was really good. I
liked some of the recipes. But I haven't actually revisited
it now in several years. So I need to pass it on, let
somebody else make use of it. Also, you know, just
like faith books. Again, I thought there was a.... apologetics. Like I really thought I would
read this and use it and all that. And I just haven't. And so I've put
them back on the shelf thinking, "Well at some point I'm going to have
time and I'll go back and revisit these." But I just, I'm not. So I'm
going to let these go. There's a couple of books that...
Like this book I really like. So I think instead of
keeping it down here, I'm really wanting to free up some
space on these shelves so they function really well for the kids
and our homeschooling stuff. I'm going to put this back upstairs
with some of my books and then anything else, I think this is
actually of my books that were on here, I think this is the only
one I'm going to keep. So I'm going to put that upstairs. And then the rest down here
is going to just be kid stuff. And then the second tip with books I
like from Marie Kondo and she says always group everything together. So meaning that we really only
want to have one place, maybe two, where we keep books, and not necessarily
having them all over our house. And so for us, our books are here and then I do have
just a handful that I've kept in the closet upstairs. I had put them up there when the kids
were little and I didn't want anything happening to them. But if
I'm going to keep a book, it has to have been life-changing.
And so I really don't keep that many. I would prefer to pass them on,
and other people can read them, but there are a handful that I have found
very valuable and I keep. I also now, I mean, we use the library a ton. I love reading on my Kindle app.
I know many say, "I can't read, I have to have the actual book." I
used to think I was that way too. And now I read on my app and I
love that it's always with me. I feel like it's easier to read in bed. Like I don't need a lamp
or to hold it weird angles. So I've really come to like it. So I try to read as many
things as possible on there. So we just don't actually have
a lot of books that come in, but still with four kids and with
homeschooling, we do acquire some books. Okay, so I'm realizing a couple problems
and why this has not been working well. None of these sections of the shelves
were assigned to any specific tasks. And so what I think I'm going to do
is have one shelf per each child, along with their homeschooling
bin, which again, I'll talk about in a few minutes. So I'm going to assign that. And then
the bottom shelf will be for my stuff. I'm also going to move any school
supplies into the cabinets under the computers, because those have
actually been mostly empty. So we have like some extra paper
and stuff that had been out here and that can get moved. So I'm
going to move supplies in there. I'm gonna assign each child a shelf. And then the bottom shelves are for my
own resources or things that I need. And I think that's going to
help it function a lot better. The other thing is that we've had a
couple bins here for Corbin and Gage's craft supplies and projects,
but this one is way too deep. It's too big for the shelf. So these
haven't actually functioned well. And so I think I'm going to look for
some different bins for them that fit better on the shelf. But more
importantly, that contain everything, kind of like these ones, so that
you can't see what's inside, because I think that would help my brain
feel better about this whole space and will help it function a whole lot better. Let's talk about magazines. I was trying to find a magazine in our
house to hold up when we could talk about this. I have no magazines in our house. Here's why. I used to love, I got my mom a HGTV
subscription for Christmas, and then after she would get it and
read it, she would pass it on to me. And I loved it. I love flipping through, I love seeing the design ideas and the... just all the ideas and
just the cool things. And I love when they compare the expensive
thing to the cheap thing and all of that. And so it wasn't uncommon for me to have
like four or five of those magazines on our coffee table. Here's
what I realized about that, is that whenever I looked
at those magazines, they actually caused me to
be discontent with our house. I always would think like, "Ooh, we
should paint the island that color. Ooh, I should get new curtains. Oh, I
should get these accessories. Oh, I should totally redecorate my open
shelves. I should paint the front door. I should paint the bathroom." And
it was just like this constant. Or I would look at something
and I'd be like, "Okay, I don't have time to do that now, but I need to figure out a way to save
that idea so that when I am ready to do it, I can come back to it.
Or I love that paint color. How can I archive it so that I always
know where it is and I could come back to it again?" And I realized when I actually
stepped back and looked at it that the stack of magazines was causing me stress, because it felt like something
I needed to do. And again, that idea of FOMO and missing out on a
really good idea or a really good recipe or something that could be
really useful in my life. And we've talked a little bit
about the silent to-do list, and this idea that everything in our
house is always sending us messages, and the messages were, "Do this.
Remember this. Archive this. Paint this." And from a
little stack of magazines. And so I just decided for the season
of life that we're in right now, that it wasn't helpful. And too, the magazines would get strewn about the
living room when the kids were playing and I'm always having to straighten
them back up again. And I was like, I don't know that this
is helpful right now, or that these are adding any value
to my life right now. If anything, they're just adding stress. So I decided to get rid of all of those
and I have not looked back from it. I mean, I've gone to the library a couple of
times and checked out magazines when we were going on a trip and I thought
it might be fun to flip through, but even then I was kind of like, I
don't feel like I'm missing anything. And I know there's some cool special
interest magazines that maybe you get, but I would really encourage you,
do we need to hang onto them? Do we need to keep them for the future? Or could we just enjoy it
for what it is, flip through, admire things and not have to continue
to keep them and archive them? And so that is something that
has been very freeing for me. And so I just want to encourage
you if, when you look at them, if you don't think, "Oh, I love that I have all these magazines,"
it might be time to part with some of them. And I love the idea of taking your address
off and donating them to the library or to others that might
be able to enjoy them. But I think being really selective
of what we keep in our home and being able to pass on the rest. Okay, so I got some different containers but
I was just trying to think through a little bit more, why
hasn't this been working? Why is it always such a disaster?
And I think there's two main reasons. One is that we just, nothing was
assigned on here. There was no, "This is Corbin's shelf and this was
Gage's." It was just kind of like a free for all. And then even like this box, it was like an inventors kit that Gage
got for Christmas, which was super fun. It just had like a ton of
craft supplies and stuff in it, but it doesn't actually fit on the shelf. He's put too much in it so
it's overflowing and it just has always looked messy. So I'm hoping that now with a container
with a lid, it won't look messy anymore. I'll get everything transferred into
here. But also in hindsight now, knowing my organizing style as a Ladybug, I would have opted for cabinets with
doors on it instead of an open bookshelf. And to me that would have felt a lot
better. Even once this is organized, I still would prefer not to see the stuff. Now that I know myself
a little bit better, and so I would have opted
for something with doors, which we could probably
add that in the future. But for now we'll get it organized. We'll assign homes and
I've reduced the inventory, so that just feels better to me too. So I'll show you all of the stuff
that we're getting rid of too. But I'm going to swap this out and
then we'll take a final look at how everything looks. Ooh, what about board games?
If you don't own Rummikub, I don't know if we can be friends. It's such a great game for all ages. We love this game. So I've said before, we always keep a few games on our coffee
table and that's what we rotate too. In the basket there's
card games and stuff. So probably there's like six games
on there and we rotate through it. Then in our closet upstairs, we
have a couple more. But all in all, I know we don't have more than
a dozen games in our house. And I think this is
also an identity thing, that if we see ourselves as a family who
loves game nights and plays board games all the time, then it's very tempting
to keep lots and lots of games. But what's interesting about that is, is that we don't need lots of games
to be a family that loves to play games. Because we still
have our favorites, right? All games are not created equal. So this is a great place to
use the Container Method again. Where is our game area and how
many can fit there comfortably? So that when we go to open the cabinet
or the closet, wherever we keep it, and we have a little
extra time to play a game, that it's very easy to see what we have. And we're really only looking
at our favorites. But again, just remembering that even if we want
to be a family that spends a lot of quality time playing games, we don't
need tons of games to achieve that. And then real quick, a couple of changes we've made to our
homeschooling system so that we can be a little more organized, my friend Dawn had recommended to have a
notebook for each child and then in it, I just write their tasks for the day. And I also paired it with a bin, since we don't have a
dedicated homeschooling space. I have one of these bins
for each of the kids. These were just from Marshall's
and then I put their name on it. So in their bin, I put their
notebook on top with their tasks, and then I put anything else
in there. Like for Corbin, he had some workbook sheets and some
little readers that he was working on. So I said, "Read these two books. Do this page." And then it's kind of fun, I like the notebook because you
can put other things, like I put, "Help Mom water trees." You can
write notes to them, other fun stuff, but what's actually probably been the
best part about this system is that I have some early risers and others that
don't like to get going until later on. And my preference is to be able to do
some work in the morning before I switch gears to helping with homeschooling. And so for those that like to get a
head start and get stuff done, I mean, Adeline will wake up in the morning and
go straight to doing her school work. This has been great, cause it's all set and ready for them
to go and she doesn't have to ask me. And then later on in the morning, if
they have questions or they need help, then I make myself self
available for that. So it has worked out really well and
they really like just being able to see what the day holds, what they need to do. And it holds me accountable and
has just been, I don't know, it's just been the best thing that
we've done for our homeschooling. As far as curriculum and all of that, we are using a complete
mish-mash of stuff now. So I still don't feel qualified
to make recommendations. So I'm not really gonna
talk about what we're using. Maybe by this time next year, I'll feel
confident to do that. But just know, pretty much everything we started with
at the beginning of last year has been replaced. So if you feel like it's been
a lot of trial and error, it's okay. In fact, even as I was
going through the shelf, I found one set of curriculum that I
just need to pass on now because we have totally abandoned it and aren't using
it. So I'm just going to let it go. I'm not going to beat myself up.
It is so much trial and error, and we're just going
to keep moving forward. Alright, so it feels really good
to have this space put together. It feels like we're ready to start the
new school year now. And it's amazing, even as I was stacking up the books
that I'm going to donate again, some of them I've had for many
years. Like, I don't know, 10 years at least. And it feels really good to just let them
go and kind of just like we're moving into a new season. I don't need
to bring those with me anymore. I love getting new books. I love finding
new books. I love listening to them, checking them out from the library. So I don't feel like I need to hang on
to all of these old books from the past. I can just let them go and we can
move on. And that feels very good. So I encourage you to do the same. I hope you can work on your books as
you watch through the rest of this playlist. I know you'll get some really good ideas
from the others that are involved with this collaboration as well. Oh, and I also added a basket
here, speaking of library books, for library books. We didn't
have a home for them currently, and so this will be our
library book basket as well. And so that's going to
work really well too. So I'm excited to put this space
to use, see how it functions now, and of course we'll make adjustments if
we need to. But I hope this is helpful. I would love to know if there's
anything that's helped you to be able to simplify books. And if you wouldn't
mind sharing that down below, it's always helpful to others as well.
But I hope you have a really good day. I love you. And I'll see you again soon.
