Wrangling the bookshelf monster

                                            (c) Tracy Lucas 2008

Bookshelves are made to corral clutter... but what happens when the would-be organizational furniture itself starts to look overgrown and messy?

Before you panic, try these simple tips to get your shelves in working order:

1. Take everything OFF the bookshelf.

Find an open area (like the floor or the bed) to work on, and remove every speck of stuff from the shelves. Dust them off, and you have a clean canvas to work with--this alone can stir the cleanliness in you and get you going with more motivation.

2. Decide your system.

Most folks slide their books onto the shelves in either alphabetic order by title, by author, or by topic. If you're this sort, pick a shelf for romance novels, pick one for computer manuals, pick one for magazines you're keeping, and have at it. There's not much that needs explaining there. Just keep in mind that everytime you purchase another book, you'll have to adjust everything down by one to make room for the new one.

If you're the adventurous type, you may like having your books in a jumble and leaving things to be discovered by happy accident when you next go looking--but that doesn't mean that your presentation has to be ugly. If that's the case, organize them by some other key--stack all the blue books on one shelf, or all the books of a certain size together regardless of topic. Have some fun, and find what works for you and your actual reading habits, not the ones you wish you had.

3. Organize and pare down.

Once you've gotten your work area figured out and your system picked, sort through the books before moving them to their final location. Make a pile for each category you've chosen, and see how much you've got to work with before doing all the heavy lifting.  This will save you a ton of rearranging time in the end, I promise.

At this point, try to whittle down your collection as much as you can. Keep close friends and family members in mind as you run through your inventory, and think about whether there are any folks who would love and treasure a book of yours that you might not even notice gone anyway. If you keep the gifts within your circle, a side benefit is that seller's remorse is nonexistent--if you find yourself longing for a dose of your old book, all you have to do is borrow it!

For those books you're willing to part with forever, try a site like BookScouter, which matches used book havers with used book sellers, and gets you some extra cash for your work.

4. Decorate.

This means you vow to yourself to never throw meaningless items on the shelves, even if that's just setting an empty cup in the space in front of the book spines until you can get to it later.

If you want things on your bookshelve besides actual reading materials, it can certainly lend a free and simplified look to the big picture in the end. But CHOOSE which things are worth the space.  Stack three or four books vertically, bookend them with a horizontal stack, and put a favorite family picture in the middle for balance. Keep things symmetrical or sentimental, and only devote your valuable space to things you love. Make no exceptions, or you'll be right back in the same spot you were in to start with.