- Eeck.
Books anyone?
Hey, it's Robyn here.
Welcome to the Mega Motivation playlist put together
by the amazing don from The Minimal Mom,
and I will link up the playlist below.
Now books, they can pile up real quick.
So I have five tips for how to keep on top of book clutter.
Make sure you stay tuned right till the end
because I have an awesome tip for how to really keep
that book clutter organized.
All right, grab your tea and let's go.
(uplifting music)
- Hey friends, I'm Robyn.
I help overwhelmed women to clutter all of the excess
from their lives so that they can start living them.
Now the coffee table can very, very quickly
become overrun with magazines and books.
Not so long ago, I decided to actually remove all
of the books from underneath and on top of our coffee table.
Nobody was even really reading them,
and it really was just becoming another place for storage.
Welcome to my living room.
Now this is a spot where I keep a lot of books
and I used to keep a bunch underneath this table like this.
So here's the thing.
When there are a lot of books under here,
no one is reading them.
I can have magazines under here.
I can have seed catalogs.
When I want to order couple seeds, sure, I'll get the catalog.
But overall, they're just sitting here.
We have company, they're not reading the books.
They're really just sitting here looking cluttered.
But now that there are no books in here,
look how lovely it is.
You see there's maximum room.
It's perfectly clean.
Nothing is taking up a lot of space.
We really just have to come in, dust it and that is that.
The thing you need to keep in mind is are you wanting
your space to be clean, to be tidy
and to keep your mind free of stress and clutter.
You want a peaceful environment.
You have to make decisions
about where you want to keep things.
It's such a cleaner look now and I really like it.
You might think it looks empty,
but I really like how neat and tidy it is now.
The other thing is I like to keep my books organized
by theme in my cupboard.
So in my cupboard, I keep my business books in there,
I keep my seed catalogs, I keep any bullet journals
and things like that in there tucked away, nice and tidy.
Now for books that I keep out in the open,
I keep them organized by color.
Apparently, this is a Home Edit thing.
I didn't even realize that.
I probably saw it from somebody who got it from them.
But I have this bookshelf
and I'm not sure what I want to do with it.
It's rather large,
but for now I just don't want it looking very clutter.
So I have this one shelf where I have all of the books
and I keep them organized by color,
and I really, really like it,
and I like how simple it is.
I used to try them on different shelves
and I just didn't really like the look.
So for now I keep them lined up,
and I think that you might like that as well.
Let me know in the comments below.
We also have these Lego books
because Lego is like a theme in our family.
So we have those stacked up there and I've just got a couple
of little small toys for decor there as well.
Now cookbooks are another thing that I love,
but I have a lot of them.
I'm actually getting a lot better and not buying so many
because I used to get one every Christmas,
and now I'm recognizing
that there I was just having too many.
So I'm actually going to quickly declutter this area.
Welcome to my pantry.
Now, this is where I keep all of my cookbooks.
I have to confess, these guys,
I haven't been the greatest at shoving in there
and finding the right spot,
so I've just been tucking them in here.
Now, these cookbooks, I don't use all of them.
I love cookbooks.
I usually buy myself on every Christmas,
but now, I've recognized that I really do want it
to be nice and tidy in here
like I want the whole house to be.
I want to come in and be like,
oh, it's nice and calm in here.
So instead of just having like things shoved in on top,
which bothers me every single time
and I know you can feel it, what do I need to do?
Obviously, I need to quickly evaluate
which ones I'm actually using the recipes from.
So if I don't use any at all,
I'm going to get rid of it.
I might sell it.
I'll probably just donate it.
If I only use one, I'm going to take a picture with my phone.
So let get started and I'll start with these ones on top.
This is actually my great-grandma.
She died, gosh, in the late '90s.
So these are her recipes.
So I'm going to hang on to this.
I haven't even looked through it.
So of course I'm going to have my nana keep on top of that.
But this one, I know I only use like one recipe from this.
There it is spaghetti.
So what I can do is I'm going to get my phone now
and I'm going to just snap a photo.
And now what I can do is add that photo to my Trello board
or to my Notion, or just to my recipes in my phone,
which is normally where I keep
like family recipes and stuff.
I'm actually switching over from Trello to Notion
to organize like pretty much my whole life,
but Trello is where I keep most of my boards.
And if you're wondering what I'm talking about,
I will put a link below, but overall, I use notion.
It is a great platform to organize things
and I will get to how I use it for other books in a minute,
but first, let's keep going through these.
This I love and I'm going to put it back here
in order of color.
This "Small-Batch Cooking and Preserving",
I've never used this.
This was a gift from my lovely mother-in-law,
but I'm not going to use it.
And let me know kind of like what you do
with your cook books also what your favorites are,
because I will have a couple of spots here for a new one.
So this one is "bowls", it's great.
I'm going to tuck it right in here.
What's this?
Okay, so here are some Hello Fresh recipe cards
that I must have tucked in there.
And so what I'm going to do actually is do the same thing.
I'm going to take pictures of these
and then add them onto my Notion board.
This is a really good cook book, Skinnytaste
and it is dark blue.
So I'm going to put it right here.
It's already get real tight in here.
So I know there are a couple of more
that I need to take out.
And my son actually has a couple in here.
He really likes Rosanna Pansino,
so that's "Baking All Year Round", "Nerdy Nummies"
So if I get really desperate,
I can always just get him to keep his in his room.
This was cooking Thai food in American kitchens
and my grandma actually had this,
but I'm not going to hang on to this.
I've never used it so I have to be realistic.
Another one I hate to get rid of is this beautiful cookbook.
And this was actually an example
of somebody recommending it, "What's Gaby Cooking",
who I love, but she recommended this
and I don't actually use it.
It took me so long to even open it and the thing is,
I don't think well, so, okay.
So this looks good, this recipe.
Cauliflower steak with provolone and pickled peppers.
That sounds pretty good.
So what I'll do is I'll have a quick look through,
if I can find more than one recipe, I will keep it.
Otherwise, what I'm going to do is just take the photo
and declutter it.
This one, I know I use it.
It's like beat up.
This is the Best of Bridge.
So I'm going to tuck it over here
where I've got some coiled ones.
Another one I have that I really don't use,
that's absolutely beautiful and to be honest,
it kind of adds a nice bookend here.
It's this "Cook with Jamie", really, really old book.
I've had this since like, oh my goodness, probably 2004.
Okay, so this came out in 2007,
so I guess that's when I got it,
but I'm going to put it on this pile.
There we go.
So that is much tidier.
And I do have room for one or two more cookbooks.
So I can tell that you want
to recommend one or two cookbooks for me,
I am all ears.
I love things that are yummy and if it's healthy,
that's great, but it doesn't happen to be.
I also love keeping these organized by color,
because if you are going to remember a cookbook,
it is probably by the color.
Now another tip, wait for this, is to get a Kindle.
Now, now, now, just hold on, hold on.
I will explain to why,
and I know you're going to say, "no, no, no
but this and this and this."
No, wait.
The Kindle is very helpful,
especially if you read nonfiction
and even if you read fiction, hear me out.
At first, I didn't really get why anybody
would want something like that,
but I ended up getting one because I wanted to read
while my husband was sleeping.
I actually upgraded recently.
I like this one because you can like,
not only adjust the brightness,
but you can also tone down the blue light at night,
which really helps me if I'm reading before bed.
I will link it below.
But the whole point is that you can highlight things
that you read, okay?
And then you can look at them up on the Kindle app.
You can email it to yourself.
Or if you use Readwise, which is an app I use
and I'll link that below just so you can find it.
You can also have all of the highlights in one place.
And then I export mine to Notion,
which is a whole other thing.
But the whole point is I really, really like
having this Kindle.
At first, I used to miss holding the paper book,
and a lot of people say that like,
oh, I just want to have like a paper book
because I love the feeling.
I really like this because first of all, it's really light.
I can put it anywhere.
Glare is not a problem like it is for like an iPad.
Overall, I can like be like,
I want that book and I can have it like that
and I can read it like that.
So it's really, really helpful.
I now have so many books on my Kindle
that they are not cluttering up my space.
So that is like the best part
is that I don't just have to deal with
like what I'm going to do with these books overall,
because like, they're there.
If I want to I can just delete them from my Kindle
and I can have multiple, multiple books.
So that is my tip.
So check out the rest of the playlist.
I will link that below and I will see you in the next video.
Bye.
(uplifting music)