Books are one of the trickiest categories to declutter. They carry memory, identity and aspiration in a way that, say, a kitchen drawer never quite does. But the same psychological principles that apply to any decluttering job apply here too, and once you understand them, sorting out your bookshelves becomes a much more manageable task.
Ideally, it’s best to collect the books from around the house first, then declutter and categorise them all at once, rather than tackling shelf by shelf in isolation. Books tend to be scattered across several rooms, and you’ll make better decisions when you can see the whole collection together. However, while it will save time and energy overall, this does involve a bigger chunk of work, time and disruption, so decide what makes sense for you. At a minimum, tackle no less than one entire shelf at a time.
Why You Need to Take Everything Off the Shelf First
There is a good reason I always tell people to take everything off a shelf or out of a drawer. When things are in situ, your mind kinds of creates what psychologists call a gestalt, a whole, ‘the shelf’. This is a natural part of the process of perception: we group things into collectives. This help us make sense of and interact with the world, but it can bring problems with it. It becomes hard to see the wood for the trees, as the phrase goes.
What that means is that your mind sees a shelf of books and says: “That’s a shelf of books. I really value that. I want books, I like books. I invested money and time and meaning into those books.” Once you take them all off, it kind of awakens or activates the individual books. ‘This is a book about trees that Mum gave me. This is a novel I started to read on holiday and didn’t get on with. That book belongs to Chris, I must return it.’ From that position, I hope you can see you’re able to start making decisions about each book.
Bookshelves are notorious for collecting dust, so it’s worth having a duster or cloth with you as you clear them. Give each pile of books a quick dust as you take them off, and a quick wipe over the shelf itself once it’s empty, just to keep the dust manageable. The focus at this stage is decluttering the books, not deep-cleaning the shelf. That comes later.
Sorting: Keep, Donate, Action
Take a pile of books off the shelf and work through it one at a time. For each book, decide and allocate it to one of these piles:
- Keep it
- Donate it
- Action it: needs a specific task, such as returning to the library or a friend, or checking with someone else.
- Recycle it: damaged or unusable, and can’t be donated
- Don’t know
You may also choose to have a sell it pile. There are apps such as musicMagpie that quote a price from a barcode scan and collect the book for you. Most books fetch very little this way, but it’s a useful way to spot the exceptions, such as specialist or technical textbooks (medical books are a common example). Genuinely old or rare books, such as first editions, are worth getting specialist advice on rather than selling through these apps.
The ‘don’t know’ pile is for genuinely tricky choices, so you’re not forced to decide on the spot. Put it aside and come back to it once you’ve built up some decision-making confidence with the easier ones.
Working through a whole collection this way can be tiring. You may get distracted, bored, or lose focus partway through. Books can also bring up emotions you weren’t expecting, so it’s worth being prepared for that, and being kind to yourself if it happens.
If you’d rather not tackle this alone, this is exactly the kind of process I help people through, so do get in touch if you’d like some support to keep things moving and reach completion.
Why Decluttering Books Is Different
Books are rarely just about whether you’ll use them again, which is the question that works well enough for kitchen equipment or clothing. The value of a book is wrapped up in the content, in who gave it to you, in who you were when you bought it, and in the version of yourself that meant to read it. That’s what makes books harder to sort through than most other categories, and why the question “will I use this?” often isn’t enough on its own.
To make faster, clearer decisions, it helps to ask yourself a more specific set of questions for each book:
- Is it something you’ve meant to read for years, but probably never will?
- Would you read it again, or did it already serve its purpose?
- Is the information in it outdated or available better online?
- Is it a duplicate, or near-duplicate?
Answering these honestly for each book moves you out of the abstract “but I might want it someday” thinking, and into a decision you can actually act on.
It’s worth saying that failing one or more of these tests doesn’t mean a book has to go. It’s perfectly legitimate to keep something simply because you want to, with no other justification needed. But if you are looking to reduce the number of books you own, these questions give you solid criteria for making those choices, rather than relying on guilt or vague intentions. If you’d like to go deeper into the emotional side of this, I’ve also written about why decluttering books is so emotional, and how to do it anyway.
Now you’ve decluttered your books: How Should You Organise What’s Left?
Once you’ve been through the keep, donate, sell, action and recycle piles, you’re left with the books you’re actually keeping. Before you put anything back, take the opportunity to give the bookshelf itself a thorough clean.
Now comes the more enjoyable part: deciding how to arrange them back on the shelf. There’s no single right answer here, and it largely comes down to one decision: is less visual noise and a sense of harmony more important to you, or is having books meticulously categorised by subject or author? Both are entirely valid, but they tend to pull in different directions, so it’s worth deciding which matters more to you before you start putting books back.
By Subject or Genre
Grouping books by subject (history, cookery, fiction, biography) is the most common approach, and for good reason. It keeps related books together, so if you’re looking for something on a particular topic, you know where to go. Series and collections naturally stay intact, too.
Some books resist easy categorisation. A memoir by a chef could sit under biography or cookery. You’ll need to make a judgement call and stick to it.
Alphabetically (by Author)
Sorting by author surname is the librarian’s approach. It makes a specific book quick to locate, provided you remember who wrote it, and it’s simple to maintain: new books just slot in where they belong alphabetically.
The downside is that it can scatter books that belong together thematically. Your gardening books and your travel books end up interleaved with everything else, rather than forming a visual or practical grouping.
By Colour
Arranging books by the colour of their spines creates a strong sense of visual organisation and structure.
Pros:
- Reduces visual clutter and creates a calmer, more harmonious look
- Can be a nice, fun design feature.
- Works well for open, decorative shelving
Cons:
- Hard to find specific books by colour alone
- Splits up series and subject groupings
- Needs frequent reshuffling as new books arrive
Arranging by colour is a styling choice, rather than an organising one. It can look fantastic on a shelf in a living room or hallway, but I wouldn’t recommend it for any shelf you rely on to find things, such as a study or a shelf of reference and cookery books.
A Hybrid Approach
In practice, most of the bookshelves I help people create use a mix of these. Subject or genre forms the primary structure, alphabetical order by author within each subject section, and then, if there’s a shelf purely for display, perhaps a small curated section arranged by colour for visual interest. You don’t have to pick one method for the whole room. The key is being intentional about which shelves are for use and which are for show, and organising each accordingly.
The Bottom Line
However you choose to arrange the books you keep, the real work happens before you put anything back: taking everything off the shelf, making honest decisions about what earns its place, and being prepared for the emotional weight that can come with letting some of it go. Get that part right, and the final arrangement, whether by subject, author, colour or a mix of all three, becomes the easy bit.