Minimalism: Books Complete!

This category was easy because I don’t have a lot of books to begin with – only 20 actually. I used to have a ton of books, but after moving several times, I learned to significantly pare it down. Because there were so few, I didn’t sub-categorize them as suggested in my original Minimalism: Books post.

I actually broke most of the rules when I did this category. You aren’t supposed to read any of the books, simply hold it and see if it gives you pleasure. I am a fast reader and decided I wanted to re-read a few books before I let them go and I didn’t regret spending the extra time doing so because it brought me pleasure re-reading them. It probably only took 2-3 hours to read them anyway.

You shouldn’t keep any unread books either because if you haven’t read it already, chances are you are not going to. I only had 2 books out of the 20 I didn’t read and I chose to keep one of the 2, which I had started to read a long time ago. I plan to finish reading it this weekend.

I am getting rid of 9 out of the 20 books as you can see in the picture below.  5 of those were given to me as gifts or were signed by the author.  I decided to rip out the page with the personalized message to keep and get rid of the books since I’ve already read them, a few more than once.  Out of the remaining that I am keeping, 5 of them I had my own poems published while I was in college and am keeping for obvious sentimental reasons.  They act as reminder to me that I love to write and I need to nurture that creative side of me more.  This blog is definitely a result of my attempts to do that.   2 are being kept because I like the pictures in them.  2 others are books I keep for reference, even though I don’t refer to them very often at all, I find comfort and joy in seeing them on my shelf.

Next category is my dreaded one – Paper.  As a warning, I see this taking me several long dedicated full days, if not weeks to get through.  I probably have between 5-10 years worth of files and receipts stored and that is already after shredding years worth of documents shortly after moving to Houston.  For some reason it is hardest for me to let go of documents, so it may be a while before I have a new Minimalism related post.  KonMari says I shouldn’t have any paper left when I’m done….I honestly don’t think I can do that.  Wish me luck; I’m going to need it for this next category for sure.