The Secret Tip to Organising Your Bookshelves Perfectly

Off Tangent Thoughts is the brainchild of Charvi @ Not Just Fiction, my blogging soul sister, that I helped out with in a small capacity, so it was mandatory for me to participate in the first prompt. Here’s what the creator has to say about this meme:

Off Tangent Thoughts (OTT) is a bi-monthly meme that has a basic list-based format wherein bloggers express their points in the form of a short or long list with the points under the list being merely a couple lines or even complete paragraphs. Every 1st and 3rd Saturday I will be putting up prompts based on which everyone can write their own posts. For prompts that will be released on the 1st Saturday, bloggers can write and publish their posts over the next two weeks, that is, until the 3rd Saturday from when posting for a fresh prompt will begin and continue up until the 1st Saturday of the next month and so on. On the rare occasions when we have a 5th Saturday, I will keep an open prompt where everyone can generate a topic of their own or catch up on previous OTT prompts they may have missed. Everyone is encouraged to interpret the prompt however they like and be innovative with their posts. I myself will be uploading my posts for every prompt at 12am IST each 1st and 3rd Saturday so that everyone participating can link their posts back to my post for that prompt. I am also putting up a schedule of prompts that will be regularly updated so that everyone can get a glimpse into the future prompts and plan their posts accordingly.

The topic for April 20th, 2019 is: Thoughts You Have While Organising Your Bookshelf. I thought I’d give you a sneak peek into what goes on in my head while organising bookshelves and also give you one secret tip to get it perfect each time! Read on to find out more.

Organising all these books is going to take a lot of time – do I really need to?

This is every lazy person’s first thought at undertaking a big task and being a serial procrastinator is an accurate description of me, so don’t expect anything better from me.

I should go on Pinterest and see if there are any new ideas on organising bookshelves!

Pinterest is the single greatest source of all good ideas and home decor tips, so this is an essential step in the process.

Well, what about Instagram? Someone’s shelfie is bound to inspire me!

Can you see the master procrastinator’s brain at work here? I get easily distracted by looking for the best, most efficient and, in this case, aesthetic way to do something and then it never really gets done.

I can’t do all of this by myself. MOM!

This is a very Indian kid thing because we’re incapable of doing any sort of cleaning up or organisation without the explicit consent and support of our moms.

*Midway through the process* I’m tired! Pinterest said this was only going to take 10 minutes!

Then either my mom finishes it up or the books just lay around until the next day when I’m forced to tidy up so I can have an actual floor to walk on.

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That’s pretty much how all my past experiences with organising my bookshelves has gone. I never end up with pretty, rainbow-coloured shelves – they’re mostly put in such a way that they can take the least amount of space possible to make room for the other books I’m going to inevitably buy. I also currently own so many books that I have officially run out of shelf space and I have towering book stacks on my table. I’m planning to give these a new home soon, so let’s see how that pans out. As for the secret tip that I promised, here you go –

Arrange them in whatever way works for you.

It may seem like a very obvious tip, but what with Pinterest and Instagram, having meticulously organised, floor-to-ceiling, colour-coordinated shelves seems like the only way to shelve books anymore. I’m here to tell you that it may not necessarily the best method for you. I personally organise by author and series so I can quickly locate any book. Once my book collection grows, I plan to organise by genre and within that, alphabetically by author names. I don’t know if it will be the most efficient use of shelf space but this makes the most sense to me. You might really like the look of rainbow shelves, like Charvi has hers organised, or by some other way entirely. For actual tips on organising bookshelves, check out this helpful post by Book Riot and this insightful video by Paige Nicole.

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How do you organise your bookshelves? How do you maintain your book collection? Do you have any practical organisation tips to share? Let’s discuss in the comments section below.

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