Decluttering books with kids

I wanted to share a blog about my KonMari experience doing books with a seven year old kid, and this process went really well I have to say. I did the session during a Saturday afternoon and this worked much better than a session on a weekday after school. I think if a child has been busy with school and you plan to do a KonMari lesson, this will be overwhelming and the child will lose interest easily. I believe the same goes with adults after a long day of work of course, but flexible schedules are making this easier for people to do nowadays if you are lucky to have that. So if you decide to work with a kid make sure that there isn't a lot of things happening during his/her day like school or any extra curricular activities. Choose a day with less activities going on, perhaps a PA Day when there is no school or on the weekend if there are no plans. Rainy days or snow storms are always good to make this a part of the day.

So I laid out all of his books on the floor and I used a small desk to place the books that spark joy and that don't spark joy into two separate piles. I would take every single book from him and I instructed him on how to do his joy checks, basically which ones he would keep by deciding what sparks joy, and then for books that no longer spark joy to thank each book and pass them along. He knew right away which books were to stay and go, and he would even read some books a bit again to make sure.

Some of the books that he let go were of stories he had read when he was younger but about characters that he no longer had an interest in, or the level of reading was too easy. But he did keep some books of stories that he had when he was a baby, which were still special to him. 

We only took one break in between for a snack, but then getting him to continue was a bit tricky because he was losing interest, but I let him know that he was doing so well and that he could get through it faster. He pushed himself and he continued the session without any other breaks.

I would say he was able to let go of around 30 books as seen above, which I feel was a really good effort and session of decluttering, I think he even got through this very well compared to an adult. In the end I organized his books by separating the educational books into one section, and then a section dedicated to his love of Pokemon and Skylanders, then the others were a mix of story books and reference books but were put together more because of their sizes. KonMari with kids can be fun if they are not jam packed with a day of activities, and make sure they don't have many things to do when you want to try this out with a kid. You can also have a reward for your child at the end of a session, it could be either more time to play or extra screen time and maybe let him or her know this so it motivates them. Below is the final result of all the books he chooses to keep that all spark joy for him. Stay tuned for the paper category with kids!