The Lazy Genius Podcast - #228 - 5 Ways to Organize Your Books

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

We’re talking about five different personalities of book organization, so hopefully, you’ll see yourself in one of these. We all have different challenges when it comes to organizing our books, but there’s really no one-size-fits-all approach. Having a lot of books doesn’t make you a hoarder. Not having towers of bookshelves doesn’t make you less of a reader. So let’s Lazy Genius how to organize your books.   Helpful Companion Links Laura Vanderkam on making time to read and her appearance on What Should I Read Next (ep. 112) Older episodes about reading: ep. 23: The Lazy Genius Reads and ep. 152: Reading in Odd Circumstances How to Use Trello to Track Your Reading Download a transcript of this episode.   This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi there, you're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 228, five ways to organize your books. In fact, we're talking about five different personalities of book organization. So hopefully you will see yourself in one of these. So we all have different challenges when it comes to organizing our books. But I think the biggest one that no one talks about in at least organizational conversations, is comparison. We all have different numbers of books, approaches to books, patterns of reading our books, ways we choose our books. But when we talk about organizing them and what we do with what we have, we get like a little squirrelly that there's only one way because we're comparing ourselves to other readers, we think are doing it the right way. So if you love to read and you have a lot of books, you might call yourself a hoarder and then feel bad for all the unread books that you own. if you don't own many books at all, you might feel like you count as less of a reader because you don't have towers of bookshelves. If you have unorganized stacks, you might wish your books were

ordered better. If you have very ordered bookshelves, but then you see people with cozy stacks of books next to every chair in the house, you wonder if you're too uptight. We compare this kind of thing all the time. And so today I want to talk about five ways to organize your books and then some questions for each to kind of help you nail what you need to do to be a genius about your own personal library based on what matters to you with zero comparison. So the first thing I want to start with is something that I learned from Laura Vandercam that has actually been mentioned a few times on the What Should I Read Next podcast hosted by Ann Bogle, which I love so much. And it is this idea of supply and demand readers. So according to Laura, most people fall into

one of these two categories. And knowing which one you usually are will likely help you better name your book organizational personality, which we'll get to in a second. So a supply reader is someone who sets aside time to read consistently, and it's usually the same time. And essentially, these people choose to read no matter what they're reading. The act of reading is the focus. there's always a supply of reading because there's always something to read and there's always time set aside to do it. Now demand readers, which is what I am, are readers who make time to read when there's something they really want to read. Laura says in her article, she says that for demand readers, quote, time becomes elastic. Like you might think that you normally don't have

time on a weekend to read, but then you start reading like a crazy twisty thriller and you can't put it down and then you don't put it down. Demand readers are the ones who joke about ignoring their families and responsibilities to finish a book, right? You're like, I just read for 10 hours. How did that happen? Now, I just said that I am a demand reader. Does that mean that I do not have set times that I read? Of course not. I totally do. I have times of the day when I do choose to reach for a book more than something else. but I definitely lean towards that demand side of making room when I want to. I think that's important. This is not like super binary. You can kind of be a little bit of both, just like when we get to the personalities. You're probably going to cover a few different things. So this isn't like,

this isn't science, right? We're just like talking about reading. There are also people who are mood readers versus list readers. Some people make a list of what they want to read. And then they just plow through that list. Some people, like me, I'm not a list reader, I read based on what I'm in the mood for. And that means for me, I like having a lot of books in my disposal so I can find something that fits my mood without waiting for it to come in from the library. Some people like to read one thing at a time. Others like to have a few things going at one time. Some people quit books that don't work. Others are chronic finishers, even if they hate the book they're reading. There are a lot of reading personalities and ways to characterize your reading habits. But what's really good to do about

all of these different things is to let those habits and how you read and how you would like to sort of see your books in your life. Let those things inform how you organize your books. Like those things are linked. The kind of reader you are is likely going to be linked to the kind book organizer that you are. So if you could describe your reading habits or your reading personality and like a couple of words, what would those words be? Are you supply or demand? Are you a mood reader? Do you like multiple books going at one time? Do you reach for a book when you see it? But if it's not front and center in your life, you're going to forget to read? Knowing those things about how you read, it's going to help you organize in a way that makes sense for you. Okay. So let's now look at

at actual book organization. So there are five personalities of book organization. This is arbitrary. This is not science. I am literally making this up. You can be more than one of these things. You can be something that's not on this list. Just roll with it. But I feel like this is a good place for us to start. So the book organization personalities that I made up are the collector, the borrower, the stacker, the shelver, and the explorer. I will now describe these arbitrary personalities, but I also think fairly accurate personalities. Okay, so first the collector. I am a collector. I used to call myself a book hoarder. But then my sister was like, hey, let's find a positive reframe, shall we? And she was right. Calling myself a book hoarder was kind of shaming. Like I was always

embarrassed about it. Like, I have so many books. But it's not embracing the fact that I love owning books. I love it. I love it. I own so many books, most of which I have not read. Physical books, books on my paper white, my Kindle paper white. I have so many books. I don't need to be embarrassed or ashamed of that. It gives me tremendous joy to have a robust personal library where I can choose whatever I'm in the mood for. So if you two are a collector, be a collector it's great now for each of these five uh personalities i want to offer a lazy genius principle to kind of go alongside it so if you are a collector i think you should focus on a house rule and i think the best house rule for you if you are a collector is to know your limit what are your

book owning limits okay now if you have an e reader That is basically unlimited. You can buy whatever books you want, you know, when they're $1.99 or whatever. So your limit actually might be cost or you might not be limited at all. And you just buy as many e-readers as you want to. Do your thing. Do your thing. Now, if you like to own physical books, name your limits there too.

You can choose a bookshelf or four or five, whatever. You can say, like, those are for my books. These are the shelves for my books. And then within that limit, that physical limit of where your books can go, you can organize those books however you want, you know, by color, by genre, by whether or not you've read them, like whatever works for you. But have a limit. I have a bookcase, like a whole bookcase, for unread books and then one for red books that I want to keep. Books that I've read but will like I don't need to keep. I will pass along. Those usually sit on my kitchen counter

for no more than like a day or two. And I give them to a sister or friend or something like that. But my bookcase of unread books right now, it's pretty packed. It's pretty packed. I don't really have room to buy more physical books right now. So what I want to do is honor that limit. Right. I want to honor the limit that my bookcase is set for me and take a break from buying physical books, which I will say side note has been really helpful not having. in person used book sales for the last year and a half. That's really helped my collecting to stay a little bit more limited. But if I'm like, oh, my shelf is so full, guess what? I can just read more off of that physical unread bookshelf to free up some physical space there rather than continuing to read

e-books or library books. So I think the biggest, the best principle for a collector is a house rule. And I think the biggest house rule that a collector can use is to name and honor your limits. Okay, so I just mentioned library books. Speaking of library books, the next personality is the borrower. This is the person that primarily borrows the books that they read from the library or even from friends. And in that case, the organization is kind of twofold. How do you organize the books that don't belong to you but are in your home, you know? But I think you even maybe more importantly than that is how do you organize your to be red list or your TBR? A collector basically owns for TBR, right? A borrower needs a place for those things.

Most likely if you're a borrower, you're already using your library holds list as your TBR. If you hear about a book you want to read, you will just like hop on your library app on Libby or something and you'll try to borrow it right away. Now, if you don't have that rhythm, And that's a rhythm that you would like to improve, like having a place to put your TBR list. There are ways to do that. We won't get into those right now. But you can apply a lazy genius principle or two to that specific problem. Basically, you can decide once. That's a lazy genius principle. Where can I decide once to immediately go and note what books I want to read when I hear about them? If you're a borrower, that's really helpful because you're probably not going to put it in your Amazon cart or you're not going to try to buy it because you're a borrower. Now, for organizing the books that you are borrowing have already borrowed, I think generally speaking, borrowers, at least in my like anecdotal experience, they don't often have a ton of physical books at any time, right? You basically read when a book is available to you. You might have like seven titles come in from your hold list from the library at the same time, but those books

will likely be organized where you read, right? The choice is already made because you don't have have like books and books and books. So you have your your book to small stack of books on your nightstand or next to, you know, the chair in your living room or like just stacked on the table. I think borrowers have fewer challenges with organizing books they own because they own very little, right? It's the TBR, though, that might be the challenge. We'll be right back. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast.

Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, so the next book organization personality, the stacker. Now, here's the thing. This is why this is not scientific. stacker can be a collector or a borrower. A stacker is basically just a reader who likes being surrounded by books and wherever they are stacked up works great. There is no shame in having stacks of books

in multiple places. Now I am not a stacker, even though I am a collector, mostly because I find greater comfort in shelved books than I do stacked books, even though I love being surrounded by books. I think the point is that the stackers just really find comfort in stacks of books. Like that's a thing, right? Like that's a vibe to have stacks of books. And they're not bothered by those stacks of books taking up space somewhere. It's almost like it's almost like a cozy way to apply the principle of the magic question. The magic question is, what can I do now to make something easier later?

So in this case, what can I do now to make reading easier later? I think have books in all the reading places. like a stack of one, a stack of seven. Just having books around is a reminder to read, but is also really comforting to some people. So embrace your stacks. Next step is the shelver. You like books and shelves. Pretty basic. You want a bookcase, a container, a limit a place for your books. You might not care very much about like trinkets and style bookshelves because you just want books in there. But basically, you prefer your book organization to be in shelves or line. up. I'm a shelver. I love a bookshelf. If that's you, embrace your bookshelf, make it work for you.

There is the lazy genius principle, put everything in its place. That is a great guide for a shelver because a bookshelf is a natural place, right? And you could just be done with your organization right there. But perhaps you would like to have more specific places for specific kinds of books on your shelves. So this is where you might decide if a book's place is based on, like I said before, on the color of its spine, on its genre, its author, its title, or if you've read it already, you can be a wild shelver and just like stick a book on the shelf. But if you want to be able to enjoy the bookshelf and find what you're looking for, figure out how to put everything in its place. You have the physical limits of a bookshelf and like what that gives you. But make sure you're shelving

those books in a way that supports what matters to you about reading. Now, as an example, my unread shelf, which I will put on Instagram sometime this week, it is a bookcase with five shelves, like a skinny IKEA bookcase. And the top two shelves are nonfiction and the rest are fiction. And that's it. That's the organization, right? Then my read and keep shelf is grouped by genre. So I will know how to find what I'm looking for when I want to reread something. So if you're a shelver put everything in its place, which can be the shelf by itself, but it might could use a little more finessing depending on what matters to you. Okay. And then finally, the explorer. Now, I almost called the explorer, the beginner, but I think some people enjoy changing up,

like how they read, how they organize their books, simply because they love being around books in any form. It might change during the seasons, during your life season, like so many things. But I will say, if you're a beginner when it comes to reading and don't have a rhythm for having reading being a regular part of your life yet, be an explorer. You know, you can figure out if you'd rather be a collector or a borrower, a stack or a shelver or anything else that you want to make up. The best principle here, though, is to just be kind to yourself in your process of exploring and figuring out what you like. Reading is so personal and so is the organization of what you read and want to read. You know, so is the organization of the actual books that you own. The point of all

of it is just to simply enjoy your reading life. And no matter what you need to do, to make that happen, you should do it. And if that means exploring and changing it up and reorganizing your bookshelves over and over again, you should do that. You should totally do that. The gift of this very arbitrary podcast episode is that it is a reminder that we can all do what makes sense for us based on what matters most. If you want to read as often as possible, figure out small, ways to have books on hand. Times that you choose to read automatically. You can put a timer on your phone to say, go read now.

You can join one of large remains reading parties on Instagram. You can simply just decide what your ways are to choose whatever you're going to read next. Now, if you want to be surrounded by books, like if that's what matters to you, just love living in a house of books. Don't feel bad for owning two, 300 titles that you will need a good long while to get through. if that matters prioritize it like you do you if you want more reading resources for me because I talk about books a good bit we'll put a few in the show notes but for now I hope you just feel encouraged to embrace how you read how you organize what you read and now you can use the lens

to notice some of these like specific organizational ideas these personalities they can help you notice what ideas and hacks like when you're listening to a book podcast or you're talking with a friend or you go into someone's home and you see their bookshelves or lack of bookshelves like you can sort of see oh that would actually be good for me because I'm a similar reader or I'm a similar organizer right but if it's not for you let it go be lazy about it we can all do our own thing without feeling badly about those choices when it comes to reading so stack collect borrow shelf explore all the things whatever you want now before we go let's celebrate our lazy of the week. This week it is Katie Cox, who shared in her stories about a small change that she made

after listening to The Shoe episode a few weeks ago. Here's what she says. Lightbulb moment when I listened to the Lazy Genius podcast today. The shoe episode made me realize how ridiculous it was to keep my kids' socks upstairs in their rooms when their shoes are close to the front door. Now there's a basket of socks below their shoes and a laundry bag for tossing dirty socks when they come home. I love this so much, Katie, and I really love the small step of moving the socks to where the shoes are. But you also apply the magic question, what can I do now to, you know, keep this socks situation easier or later? You can have a laundry bag there for your dirty socks, too. That is so awesome. It's so simple and actionable, and I hope it's working well for you.

And anybody else who's listening, that might be an idea for you too, if that's what matters to you. So thank you, Katie, for being the lazy genius of the week. Okay, y'all, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life?

Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.