One of my clients had books scattered throughout 3 different rooms in several bookcases. She relayed, “It didn’t really matter that I had all those books because it would take too long to find one if I needed it so I wouldn’t look.”

Feeling her books had become a space hogging energy drain, she decided it was time to apply some order to the situation. Bookcase by bookcase she pulled all the books down, sorted them by the general subjects of: Real Estate and Selling, Self-Improvement, Fiction, & Travel. Then she pulled on her discerning glasses and pulled all the ones that she didn’t think she’d need again, or that didn’t feel like they supported who she was or becoming (perhaps they spoke to a younger her) and she filled boxes with those to go to the used bookstore or thrift store. (for more ideas on finding new homes for books, see What to do with too many books)

She liked the placement of her bookshelves so she placed the books that were left according to use: Real Estate and Selling in the office, Fiction in the living room and Self-Improvement and Travel in the guest room. Her final step before putting them on the shelves was to arrange them alphabetically by author.

During our next phone appointment, we were discussing Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization and she said, “I think I have that book, I’ll go look. She was back within 15 seconds. “Nope, it wasn’t there, I must have given that one away.” At that point the book was irrelevant because she was so excited that she had reached this understanding so fast. She knew exactly where to look for that book. This ease in finding what she was looking for has become her overall organization goal.