Simplifying and KonMari-ing

I'm on the home stretch now finishing up my newest book 'Thirty Chic Days: Practical inspiration for a beautiful life'; we're down to the final edit and then it will be released - I'm planning for it to be out in March - exciting!  However, having a messy and cluttered home office does not feel good when I'm writing.  My home office is the room that everything gets put into and it's really putting a crimp in my creativity.  So I have been decluttering this space with Marie Kondo's 'Does this spark joy?' question in mind.

The bookshelf above, sits behind my writing desk, and this photo of it is post-streamlining.  The photo below, is the 'before' photo.  There is a whole extra row of books along the top, plus piles are stacked on top of the standing books in each cubby.  The After photo calms my heart.

I am donating a lot of books.  There were many fiction books that I thought I'd read again but I haven't.  An example:  I had all Sophie Kinsella's wonderfully funny and nutty books including the Shopaholic series.  I will probably re-read some of them at some stage, but I can easily borrow them from our library, and in the meantime someone else can enjoy them and I'm not having to house them.  The only book in the fun-fiction category I have kept is Jemima J, by Jane Green.  I love this book and have read it many times.  I was surprised to see on Amazon that it had really polarising reviews - it seems you either love it or hate it.

I'm also moving along those books that don't inspire me as much as I thought they would - sometimes it's something as small as (literally) the font.  One book that looked like it might interest me had such tiny font and really closely spaced lines, so much that it made my eyes funny.  I'm not in the market for large print just yet, but this tiny print was ridiculous.  I don't need that kind of aggravation in my life so out this book went - and I checked to make sure the font on Thirty Chic Days was not too small :).

Some books that I kept simply needed their dust jacket removed and I loved them again.  Some dust jackets look outdated or are faded, and when you reveal the simple cover underneath, the book seems quite different. I love Debra Ollivier's Entre Nous and can't ever see myself decluttering that, but another of her French-themed books 'What French Women Know' I was on the verge of donating because it had such an awful red and black dust jacket, with no image and no design qualities whatsoever.  Looking inside the book showed me that I actually probably wanted to keep it because the information within looked quite delicious, so I removed the dust jacket and found a simple white cover with pretty pastel spine detail.  I felt bad throwing out all these glossy paper book covers, but I know I will enjoy the books much more without them.

And then there were books that just didn't resonate with me anymore.  Ten or fifteen years ago they did and I read and re-read them then, but now, well I've moved onto other things and some information I just don't need anymore.  I've learnt and implemented, and now it's time for someone else to have a chance to read those books.

The final type of book I donated was reference books that I knew I would never pick up - it would be straight to Google for me.

Look at those stacks of books waiting to be released into the wild - they look so ready!

I did have a few issues with the donation boxes though.  You know how cats like to hide in boxes?  Well, Nina (on the left) and Jessica (right) are no exceptions.  They stayed in the boxes so long I was getting impatient.  I wanted to get those books packaged up and out of my home office.  Eventually they surfaced and I could box everything up though.

I haven't completely finished my home office declutter, but this was a big part of it and the energy feels so different already - fresh, airy, clean - and this inspires me to keep on going (not that I need motivation right now - I've got it all goin' on).

A great Feng Shui tip I read, was 'make your least favourite place into your favourite place'. When I think about which was my least favourite place in our home it was definitely the home office, because even though I want to sew and write in there, it was a dumping ground of items to donate or store and it wasn't a very inspiring place to be. No more though; as I streamline, clean and scent my home office, it's now the place that lifts me up and makes me feel so creative.

What area of your home would you say is your least favourite, and... just what are you going to do about it?