If we have a lot of books, it can be hard to organise them properly. Decluttering might not be the easiest philosophy if you need a lot of books and reference material for your work or study. Life can be pretty challenging trying to organise all your frequently used resources and notes. On this page we look at a trick that organisers have up their sleeves, they hide clutter (in the sense that it is hard for certain items look organised, we clearly don’t suggest you keep actual clutter). Here we will hide visual bookshelf clutter.
Hiding bookshelf clutter is a great beginners project
Organising books tends to be a nice, safe organising project in which you can hone your organising skills.
In this video, I show you how to organise books
In the video above, I focus on the bookshelf in a challenging room.
I show how
To create the feeling of a library
Shuffle furniture around
Create zones in the bookshelves
Make it suit our needs
If you want to see what else we did in this room, have a look at this page: Help Declutter My Home.
Step-by-step process on how to organise your books
A past organising workshop student contacted me; she needed help to organise her books for her teaching work.
We started by looking at her situation:
It was a spare room with
Lots of notes
Material based on student year groups
Many books
And additional teaching resources
How will we organise these books, references, and hide the bookshelf clutter?
It isn't as hard as it looks, provided we go through a step-by-step process.
Organise books - Step 1 - Declutter
Firstly, before we organise, we need to declutter. Are there any books that are of no use to us anymore? Pass them on; books are some of those great treasures to pass on to others. If you really enjoyed a book why not give it to your local charity shop and spread the love, the book has now the potential to be enjoyed by many people.
Organise books – Step 2 - groupings
The second thing to do when organising our books is grouping
We need to group our books in (for us) logical groups. This could be by size or colour but for most of us “not so organised people” we think in overall concepts. Like study books: past or current study books. Other examples include books for my hobbies, novels, cookbooks, etc. The list is endless.
Organise books – Step 3 – easy access
Third step when we organise books - easy access
If we have a range of different books for work or study that we use frequently, we need to make sure we can access them easily. This means that, for a lot of us, our books should stand on their sides, or lie flat on top of each other. This way we can see the books; they are already categorised (see step 2), and we can easily access them and put them back (very important!).
We need to look at the volume of books and the shelving we have available.
If we have sufficient shelving, as shown in our situation above, I would use markers to section off different areas and the different groups we already organised in step 2.
Grouping difficult things
If you want to learn how I group difficult things together, have a look at this video:
How to hide bookshelf clutter
Now we are left with items we want to keep, and we have grouped them; there are different options.
In the closet, they go:
A super simple option for how to organise bookshelf clutter is putting square boxes in a wardrobe (similarly to what I suggest in how to organise your closet).
Canvas boxes
If you can't hide bookshelf clutter behind a door, we have some other options: canvas boxes or turning the book space into a work of art.
I like to use canvas boxes as they are so versatile and come in different shapes and sizes. The benefit of canvas boxes is that when you put only grouped books together, you can pick up all related books in one movement- just lift out the box. You can also use some magazine holders if you don't have enough material to make a big group, or if the material is flimsy.
If certain books or references look messy, you can use the canvas box to hide the (organised) messy area (yes, there is such a thing as an “organised messy area”). The book area tends to look calmer with some books stored in boxes.
And you will still know exactly where items are that you need - you are organised.
Make it artistic
An additional idea for canvas boxes is:
Place some books horizontally and some vertically so you can still clearly distinguish between your groupings.
Get smaller containers for knick-knacks you want to keep (clearly I would firstly urge you to declutter them).
To use DVD storage solutions – often books and DVD’s are attracted to the same area, using some novel storage solution can hide the bookshelf clutter and make the whole space look more interesting.
Over to you
Show me how you got inspired to hide your bookshelf clutter.
Do you have before and afters?
How did the process make you feel?
You’ll probably love
My visual book on organising room by room
Frequently Asked Questions
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Canvas boxes are a great option — group related books together and lift the whole box out when you need them. This keeps busy shelves looking calmer without requiring you to get rid of books you actually use.
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Group by how you actually think about them, not just size or colour — for example, current study books, hobby books, novels, and cookbooks. Logical groupings make it far easier to find and return books later.
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Keep frequently used books visible and easy to grab — standing on their side or stacked flat by group. Save canvas boxes or closet storage for reference material and books you don't need daily access to.
