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Day 13: Books, Magazines, DVDs, and Video Games
Once upon a time, I was a school teacher. I taught 5th grade Language Arts, which meant that I had a rather impressive classroom library. A wide variety of both fiction and non-fiction resources for my students right in our classroom. When I became a stay-at-home mom, that book collection came home with me and was added to my personal collection of over 300 cookbooks, all of my old text books from grad school, and several years of magazine subscriptions that once read, I had never gone through again. I had to do a major decluttering of the bookshelves, and since then, I have done a media clean out several times a year to get rid of the excess.
In the last week, I did a major overhaul of my personal books – the ones that I don’t use for homeschooling. We had moved my hutch into the kitchen, and I decided that I would use only 2 shelves in it for my books. This meant deciding which books were important enough to keep, and which ones would get boxed up and donated or sold.
Of course, I kept the books that I use most often. No point in getting rid of something that is a treasured resource because you would regret it later. I have several non-fiction texts that I love too, and have decided to keep those, however the handful of novels I had on hand have been donated. I’m not someone to read a book more than once, so it was time for them to move on to someone who would enjoy them.
I then went through the stack of magazines. I had several that had Post-Its flagging their pages, so I went through and scanned those pages for personal use, and saved them to Evernote if it was something I still was interested in. If the magazine had great images, I put it aside for craft projects with the children, otherwise the magazines made their way to the recycle box. I do keep the past year of some of my magazines, and for those, I have gotten special storage containers for them that will keep them tidy on my bookshelf.
As for DVDs and video games, they are my husband’s domain more than mine. He has started getting downloadable games off of the PlayStation Network instead of purchasing the physical games. The games cost the same amount, but now they only take up electronic storage space not physical space. The physical games (and DVDs) are stored in the drawers of our entertainment center, and on the occasion where there isn’t enough room for a new game, he decides which old game to get rid of to make more room.
So set your timer for 10 minutes, position yourself in front of your bookcase, and start organizing and decluttering!
Wow! in never knew you were a school teacher in another life! I find that ridding the DVD and CD clutter has gotten a lot easier now that everything is digital.
It feels like it was another lifetime ago!
And I agree, now that so much is digital it is a lot easier to cut down on the CD & DVD clutter.