Organize Yourself!

I have been putting off trashing this book for about a year.  But finally, I tossed this book into thrash a few minutes ago.  After reading pg. 5 of this book, I discover that I'm a procrastinator. I often delay my decision making because I don't want to confront it.  To me, the decision on whether I should trash a book is just too painful to make.  But I took this book's advice and just started the tossing anyway.  My bookshelves are very very cluttered, so cluttered that I no longer know what books I have, so cluttered that I'm too afraid to even look at my bookshelves anymore.  The clutter  makes me feel so overwhelmed that I am unable to make a decision on what book I should read.  So, I end up not reading much of my books.  

The reason that I trashed this book isn't because I didn't enjoy reading it. I did and I like this book.  I like that this book divides organizing into different subject areas and aspects of daily lives.  There is one section that focuses on organizing books, which gave me a lot of great ideas on how I can take control of my books clutter.  But  when the book asked me to watch for books that I could donate, it was then I got stuck. I just couldn't make up my mind.  For each of the few books and magazines that I'm now  listing on this blog as the giveaways, I had gone through a lengthy emotional struggle.  But one thing is clear, I can't donate this book to any charity or library.  I had checked the libraries near me, they all have a more updated version of this book. This book was published in 1986. The libraries have the updated version published in 2005.  I can't sell this book here on my blog either, because as you can see from the photo above, the upper corner of the book cover was somewhat damaged by the original price tag sticker that I unsuccessfully tried to remove.  I can't list this book on this blog as a giveaway either, because I prefer to give away books and magazines that are like new in condition.  Since I inherited this book from my mom-in-law, I wasn't wasting my own money when I trashed it.  That's how I came to my final decision.

Now, I have come up with a system in organizing my books. I will start fishing out the ones that I inherited from someone else and check their condition. If their condition is not like new, I will just toss them in trash.

Overall, I find this book very inspiring and very helpful. I will buy the updated version after I am making some satisfactory progress in  decluttering my bookselves.   You can help me by checking out the books and magazines that I'm now giving away.