Is tidying up notebooks possible for us notebook addicts? I’ve been a tidy person who folds her t-shirts precisely and stores them vertically in drawers since long before Marie Kondo‘s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” hit the bestseller lists. Because I’ve lived in some very tiny New York apartments, I’ve always been pretty good about clearing out clutter, even if I am a bit of a hoarder when it comes to CDs, books, and of course notebooks.

Now that Marie Kondo has her own TV show, everyone seems to be talking about her rules for tidying, and she’s had to clarify some of her advice. At one point, it was rumored that she had said you shouldn’t have more than 30 books and the internet pretty much erupted with people saying “oh hell no!” Kondo has since clarified that she doesn’t suggest any particular numerical limit, as long as your books all “spark joy.”

I haven’t read Kondo’s book, but I did watch a couple of episodes of her TV series. They made me realize that I’ve already been living another aspect of her method without even knowing it. When you go through her program of tidying up, you’re supposed to touch all your things, and decide whether you feel that spark of joy from them. You’re also supposed to thank them for their service. You keep the ones that spark joy, and get rid of the rest.

I already do this with my notebooks all the time. I am always sorting through my notebooks. Sometimes I’m putting away ones I’ve just reviewed and I use it as a chance to make room in one of my storage boxes. I find myself handling the various piles of notebooks, turning notebooks over in my hands, sorting them, appreciating their various qualities, and organizing them by size and type. I don’t actually thank them for serving me, but I contemplate them with appreciation, and most of them do spark joy.

Sometimes I come across ones that don’t spark joy and I set them aside to give away or donate. I have a huge collection of notebooks and sometimes I feel like it’s a bit much, but on the whole, I keep it under control and organized and relatively neat. I don’t let my notebooks become a source of stress rather than pleasure. Tidying notebooks is part of the way I enjoy them.

So here’s my KonMari-inspired tidying method specifically for notebooks:

Take out all your notebooks from all the various places you store them and put them all together in one room.

Pick each one up, see if it sparks joy. Your notebooks may bring up various feelings as you do this:

• Feeling happy or sad about past events recorded in a journal
• Feelings of anxiety about not being creative enough
• Feeling like a certain type of notebook is “too nice” to use 
• Thinking about why you used to use a certain type of notebook but have now switched to another

This is all good stuff to ponder, and might help you decide how you want to approach your notebook usage and buying in the future.  And it may help you realize that some of your notebooks aren’t helping you achieve your goals. If you have notebooks that don’t spark joy, thank them and set them aside for disposal. You may find that a local school teacher is thrilled to get a donation of notebooks.

For the notebooks that do spark joy, group them by whether they are used or unused. Then group them by size. For used notebooks, you might also want to organize them by date.  Try to find boxes you can store each size in efficiently. Simple cardboard shoeboxes work very nicely for pocket size notebooks. It’s better to use small boxes that won’t get too heavy. I have some clear plastic boxes that were meant to store sweaters, but they work nicely for pocket notebooks because I can easily see what’s there, and read the dates I’ve written on the edges. (It’s hard to find good plastic boxes with straight sides and the right dimensions. Mine are old and don’t seem to be sold anywhere nowadays, but these look pretty good.)

You could also store notebooks on shelves like books. Regular bookshelves are too deep for pocket notebooks, but if you have old racks used for CDs or DVDs, they might work for holding smaller notebooks. Vertical storage is much better than piles, so you can see each notebook without having to dig around because every layer of notebooks hides more underneath. 

In my home right now, I have the two plastic boxes of completed notebooks and sketchbooks above, a couple of cardboard boxes of notebooks that are in my “to-be-reviewed” queue, a box of notebooks to be given away or donated, a plastic under-the-bed box with spare to-be-used notebooks, and a handful of other in-progress notebooks around my desk. I also have quite a few shoeboxes full of my lifelong notebook collection– childhood notebooks, college sketchbooks, pre-2001 journals, more spare notebooks and other goodies I’ve written about on this site. These are all in a storage unit and I look forward to regaining access to them someday soon!

I’d love to hear from readers about how you organize and store your notebooks, especially if you’ve tried Marie Kondo’s tidying plan! Even if every notebook you touch sparks joy, the KonMari method is probably a good way to get rid of other stuff so you’ll have room for more notebooks!