Since July 2019, I have been working with Lise and James. With my guidance and support, they have been working together to go through the KonMari Method to transform their beautiful home. I primarily work with clients on a 1:1 basis however it’s always such a pleasure to support couples in their quest to get organised. During our first session on clothes, Lise and James completed their joy checks on their clothing in different rooms but at the same time. Over the 8 hours it took for them to complete their clothing category, I learnt some wonderful things about Lise and James:

They were incredibly motivated and committed to the KonMari process. My sessions normally run for 5 hours (particularly a first session with a new client or clients!) but Lise and James were extremely keen to finish the clothing category, so we continued until every clothing item had a designated home!
They were respectful of each other’s decisions about which items stayed along with the items each person decided to say goodbye to. They consistently encouraged one another and kept each other (and me!) going with endless cups of tea!
They viewed KonMari as an opportunity for growth and embracing positive change. It’s always such a privilege to share the KonMari Method with clients who are ready to embrace the philosophy wholeheartedly and choose the parts of the philosophy that are going to help them to achieve their vision and goals.

It came as no surprise that our second session on books would be as exciting as our first. Across 11 hours, Lise and James went through over 4,000 books. This was a memorable session for so many reasons. I want to share with you what happened during those wonderful 11 hours of tidying books. I also hope this post serves you well particularly if you are about to declutter and organise your own book collection.

FYI: My standard tidying session length is normally up to 5 hours. Increasingly though, I have been asked to stay on for a longer period of time as my clients are inspired to continue tidying! My 11 hour tidying session with Lise and James is certainly my longest tidying session to date!

The start of the session

Whenever I work with clients for the first time, I ask them to give me a tour of their home. This is a chance for me to become familiar with the home environment and it provides me with the opportunity to show respect for the home. I look at the layout, the storage options, where items currently reside and get a feel for how the home supports (or hinders) the people who live there. Before moving any of their books, at the beginning of our session Lise and James took stock of all the locations where their books were currently stored. It’s my role to ensure that no book is overlooked. There’s nothing worse at the end of completing a KonMari category only to realise that you’ve forgotten about a secret collection of items in a long-forgotten space. Lise and James identified six different locations where their books were initially stored and we discussed their vision for each of these spaces. Some of the questions we explored together were: Which books did they want to store there?; How do they want to feel when they view their books in this space?

Remove ALL of the books

If you are about to tidy your books for the first time and own a whole library, be very careful with this next step. Let’s be realistic. If you own thousands of books, I don’t want you to bring all of your books to one spot, only to give up because there are so many and you’re already feeling exhausted! In Lise and James’ session, we had allocated the whole day to tidying this category and there were three of us working together. These factors (along with the fact that we were drinking endless cups of tea!) allowed us to confidently tidy all 4,000 books in one day. If you are working on your own to tidy your books, if you own 500 or less, I’d say that’s a good amount to go through if you allocate around 3-5 hours. If you own more than 500 books, you may want to approach the book category one subcategory at a time. For a list of all of the book subcategories, please visit my KonMari section where you will be able to download the free Spark Joy London Tidying Checklist.

Decide ahead of time the exact location where you will be going through your books. For Lise and James, we settled on the hallway near the library shelving because it gave us plenty of space to work in, it offered lots of flat surfaces to work on to sort the books and it was close to the kitchen (easy access to tea and refreshments to keep us going!). If possible, you want to choose somewhere comfortable that allows you to be relatively free from distraction. For more information about how to KonMari your books, please visit the KonMari section of my website on books.

Joy checks

Once we removed all of the books to one spot, I asked Lise and James their thoughts on their book pile. Often, clients have never seen their books in this way before. It’s important to physically remove every book from its space for a variety of reasons:

It allows you to grasp the overall volume of books that you own.
It allows you to clean each book and effectively '(in true Marie Kondo style) ‘wake up’ each book from it’s previous ‘slumber’. Although this may sound a bit odd, it’s incredible how the books almost seem to have a new vibrancy once they are positioned in a new place, ready to be sorted.
Clearing the space fully means you can clean it (please don’t put the books you decide to keep back in a dusty space).
Removing every book ensures that no book is forgotten about. If you ‘tidy’ your books by just glancing at them on the shelves, you won’t be able to effectively make a decision in the same way you can when you are encouraged to physically handle each book through your joy checks.

The majority of the books in Lise and James’ 4,000 strong collection belonged to James, so he was the main driver for the joy checks. To learn more about the questions to ask yourself when you’re tidying your books, please read my post '8 Questions to Ask Yourself when You’re Decluttering Your Books’. It’s my role to keep my clients motivation high through this part of the process and engage in a meaningful dialogue about each book in isolation. I am also responsible for ensuring my clients keep up a good pace with their joy checks. If they come across a book which they are unsure about, it’s best it goes into a maybe pile temporarily. The maybe pile is then revisited once all other joy checks have been complete. Lise and James were very decisive about which books were staying and which were being donated.

As you go through your own books, it’s best to sort them into subcategories. James had a very clear vision of organising his books by author and topic, so we created different piles of these subcategories which saved a great deal of time later on. When your joy checks are complete, it can be frustrating to then have to sort them as you may already be very tired from making hundreds on decisions on whether each book should continue to occupy space in your home. So my advise is to always sort as you go.

Book piles for each author and/or topic.

The discoveries

I always learn so much about my clients through a tidying session on books. Books represent our history, our values and reveal so much about our personality, therefore they offer a unique insight into my client’s inner world. During the joy checks on books, Lise and James found many books they had completely forgotten about. This is very common! Some are in line with our vision for our ideal lifestyle and living environment whilst others certainly no longer represent the people we would like to become. The latter we can say goodbye to with gratitude. Lise discovered a lot of books on decluttering including two copies of marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying! She certainly had a strong desire to declutter and get organised in the past, but it’s wonderful that they were both able to invest the time and energy to finally achieve this goal.

I would also recommend giving each book a shake upside down to see if anything is hidden inside the book. you may find photographs, letters, mementos or even money in some circumstances!

Giving each book a permanent home

Only when you have completed all of your joy checks on every book you own, are you then ready to give them a home. With my support, Lise and James already sorted their books into their own subcategories so this part of the process was relatively straight-forward. Lise and James had reduced their books from over 4,000 to 2,000. That’s an incredibly generous amount of books to donate to others who will fully utilise and enjoy them to the full. It’s always such a pleasure to ‘save’ books from a lonely future where they will gradually gather dust and decay over time.

James took great pleasure in ensuring his authors were stored in each section of his hallway library and gave me full permission to colour coordinate each author section, much to my delight!

After 11 hours of hard tidying work, the final result was beautiful and more importantly, organised in a way that Lise and James now had full ownership and control over the volume of books they owned. Because they were involved in the process, every step of the way, they are more than able to maintain the organisation we created together. I know I’ve done my job well when my clients don’t invite me back to re-organise a catgeory because it’s ‘gotten out of control’.

After: The Attic Conversion Book Shelves

If you’re interested in finding out more about how I may be able to support you in decluttering and organising your books, please feel free to reach out to me or book your free 30 minute consultation. Books is often a very emotional category to tidy, because it reveals so much about our quest for identity and what we are truly passionate about.

Congratulations to Lise and James! You will never have to spend 11 hours decluttering your books in this way ever again!

UPDATE: Over 20 sessions so far, Lise and James have gone through clothing, books, papers and komono. They have started tidying their sentimental items and have made tremendous progress in this area. I look forward to helping them to complete their KonMari tidying festival next year.

KonMari-ing as a Couple: When 4,000 books became 2,000

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