This Has Been A GAME-CHANGER In My Bookish Life

You ever find something that you love and just REALLY works for you and it’s a game-changer that you just want to shout to the world?? YEP that’s where I’m at right now. I have found something that has changed my bookish organization in a way that I ACTUALLY feel like I’m organized. The last time I felt this way when it came to book-related organization was when I started using my bullet journal for book related things.

 

The Backstory

 

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The backstory to this is that I’ve had SUCH a hard time having a good organization system with my book life in terms of “book clutter”. Clutter sounds negative but I don’t know what else to call it.

It was especially obvious in our one bedroom apartment because books were piled and scattered because 1) no room but the biggest reason was 2) I didn’t have a system in place to keep the piles at bay and keep up with the ebb and flow of books.

I’d get book mail or buy new books or get library books and I didn’t have a place for them so I’d put them on my dining room table or my coffee table or the top of a small shelf vowing to put them away soon. And then suddenly it was as if they multiplied and I’d have piles of books in those spots.

So then we moved to our house and I thought GREAT no longer will I have books everywhere because we will have SPACE. But it quickly became the same thing — books everywhere except where they should be. And that’s when I realized what it was.

It wasn’t a space issue it was a SYSTEM issue.

I didn’t have a system for dealing with the ebb and flow of books coming in and out of my home. It was daunting to me to have to organize my shelf every time something new came in. I didn’t have  a “spot” for my library books. So the piles still happened. (Okay also a little laziness is part of the equation too).

UNTIL I figured out a system with something I ALREADY owned that has absolutely changed my book organization game and kept clutter at bay in my new home.

 

ENTER THE BOOK CART

 

I got this white one from Target (also in grey! )

 

I had purchased this from Target for storage in Riley’s room and after seeing soooo many of them on Bookstagram it finally dawned on me that I needed to use this for myself. So, Riley’s stuff got relocated into bins in her closet (less cute!) but I got an organizationally system that absolutely is working for me.

Most people I see are using them as TBR carts, from what I see at least, but it’s become an organizational powerhouse and clutter game-changer for me.

I want to share a little bit about how I use it and make it work for me by illustrating my problems and how the book cart solves them easily. I have no hard and fast rules for it but this is a loose organization using the book cart.

 

A Home For My Library Books

Problem: I’d come home with a stack of library books with no place for them to go for the temporary time they were in my possession. I’d walk in from the library and just dump them. So, again, they’d end up on our dining room table or our entertainment system or sometimes I’d have them piled on my built-in in the dining room where there was no room for them until it was time for them to go back. I didn’t have shelf space freed up to put them or else I would have done that.

With the book cart now I can organize my library books. They have a HOME that isn’t my dining room table or somewhere else that creates clutter. I have them in the top of the book cart so I don’t forget about them. Sometimes when I’m feeling extra ambitious I order them by due date but I don’t always put that pressure on myself.

Now I just walk in from the library, walk up to my office where my book cart is and put the library books in and hang up my library tote. That’s some very low key organization skills right there.

 

 

A Temporary Home For Books Needing To Be Sorted Or Shelved

This was probably my biggest problem in my book organization endeavors. I was getting book mail almost daily and it was overwhelming. I like to take the time to go through the books and decide whether or not I wanted to read them or keep them. I didn’t have TIME daily to go through them and look them up and read the summary and then find them a home on my shelf if I wanted to stay. Bookshelf organization and rearranging takes time — especially when you don’t have much free space. So I’d open my book mail and put it on a table or somewhere.  Are you sensing a theme here? PILES OF BOOKS EVERYWHERE.

So now when new books come in the mail (or I buy them or get them from a Little Free Library) they go on the cart (in no order — just plopped on there) and then I will pick a day during the week to go through them in one swoop — I decided whether or not I’m keeping them, I record them in my Goodreads as owned and then I shelve them. It’s made it so much more managable to take the time to do this once and find places for the new books without having to do it daily just to keep the clutter at bay (which I could never keep up with…hence the piles).

 

A Temporary Place For Books I No Longer Want

So after I sort them some end up staying on the cart and then weekly I also find new homes for them — people I know or mostly Little Free Libraries these days. I do have an overflow box right now because they can’t all fit on the book cart with all the things I’m using it for. On occasion I’ll be going through my books and suddenly realize I have no interest in a book that is currently on my shelves and so on the book cart it goes.

 

 

A Place For My Monthly TBR

So even though I don’t use it EXCLUSIVELY as a TBR cart, I do use it in that way also.

On the bottom of my cart I typically put my “loose” To-Be-Read stack. I’m really bad at sticking with TBR lists for the month BUT I have found it lessens the “OMG I JUST FINISHED A BOOK AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO READ NEXT” panic that I have which leads me to not read for a couple days because of my indecision.

So, now, I just pick a few books I’d like to read for the month and I put them at the bottom of my cart so when that time comes that I’ve finished a book I can look through what I already pulled out and either read one of those or, if none of them are what I’m in the mood for, then I will go back to the bookshelves.

Bonus Use: sometimes, if I have room, I use it to pull out the books I want to photograph for Bookstagram (hi! let’s connect over there) so that I have them ready to go for when Riley is sleeping and I can photograph them and not have to deal with the mess right away. Just scoop them back up to be put away later on.

 

So, that’s how I’m using my baby organization cart turned book cart! I think, for me, it’s an EASY system that doesn’t require much out of me daily but relieves me of the book clutter that overtook my house so often. I literally just walk upstairs and dump them in the cart and BOOM done until my scheduled day to deal with the books that need more permanent homes on my bookshelves.

I’ve organized it in a way that makes sense to me and alleviates the problems I’ve had with any other bookshelf organization systems I’ve tried to implement for myself — which normally involved bookshelf maintenance of some sort every day which dissuaded me altogether after about 2 days of it.

I’ve been doing it for a few months now but wanted to wait a bit before I declared it to be such a game-changer — didn’t want to revert back to old habits. When you find something that works, ya gotta stick with it (and tell everyone you know!).

Should you get a book cart?

I know it’s easy to see trends and wonder if you NEED it. I personally am finding it to be a worthy investment (even though it wasn’t its initial purpose for it). I need the extra space but I’m finding it to be the ultimate holy grail for me in bookish organization. I also think it’s perfect if you need more space for books but can’t have another bookshelf because you can store your books in a way you can still see them but roll it into a closet or somewhere out of the way if need be.

Like I mentioned, I have the one from Target which is super affordable but there are plenty of others out there like these:

 

Do you have a book cart? How do YOU deal with the book “clutter” so to speak? What’s your system for staying on top of the books coming in and out of your home? What are some of your bookshelf organization problems?

 

P.S.  Need inspiration for gifts for book lovers ? Need a book to read? Check out this list of 2019 Book to Movie Adaptations!

 

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