Insecure Writer's Support Group

Spring Cleaning and Decluttering #IWSG #AuthorLife #BookRecommendations

It’s the first Wednesday of the month and time for another posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

Learn more here.

I would like to thank everyone for their supportive comments and emails over the last month — it meant a lot to me. I’m on the road to recovery, even when some days it doesn’t feel like it.

I’ve been reading a lot of books — especially non-fiction — and doing the work to recover from burnout. I’ll be sharing my reviews of these books in next year’s A-Z Blogging Challenge in April. I think that would be enough time to type the reviews I’ve written in my notebook…

An overarching theme from these books have to do with making space for yourself (in your life, home, office, etc.). And as it is now technically Spring where I am, I thought I’d share what I’ve done and what I’ve learned.

Spring is such a special time of year. I think Anja’s Grims would agree.

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I started with Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life by Gail Blanke. It was recommended to me by a blogging friend (among other decluttering books) and it immediately stood out from the rest.

Going through the steps, writing down what I was throwing out and why – redefining myself – was exhausting physically, mentally and emotionally. I threw out 75 things (note that clothes only count as one item, etc.). And then I repainted and redecorated two rooms (the others are fine as they are).

Then I moved on to several other books, but Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life by Marie Kondō spoke to me more.

I really liked the concept of organising your day with activities that spark joy; writing down everything you do and eliminating the things that are superfluous and the things that don’t bring any joy. I got a lot of ideas to reorganise my home to make everything bring joy.

After the great coffee-keyboard-disaster-of-2023 was cleared up (loads of work still needs to be redone that was lost in the process), I had to declutter my digital world.

And as the IWSG Goodreads Book Club came to an end last month, I started there. I deleted all images still on my computer, external hard drives, etc. and then on Canva. Then I went through Goodreads and removed the books from my shelves that didn’t spark joy (not just books chosen for the book club, BTW). I went through files and found reviews I hadn’t posted yet, and posted them on Goodreads, BookBub and Pinterest. And then I removed all books I wasn’t going to read from my eReading apps. On one hand it felt like I was wasting money, but on the other hand I felt like I had removed a great weight from my shoulders.

All I have to focus on right now (in the digital world) are my own things: website/blog, podcast, reading and reviewing books of my choosing and on my timeline, Instagram, my newsletter, and writing and publishing great books.

It feels good to have this sort of freedom after years of volunteering in different groups.

I did have a bit of a setback with my books. I had to unpublish a book I had published in March as I felt the story was a bit flat and not what I wanted it to be. I will work on it once I’m in a better place creatively.

you can do anything but not everything quitcast podcast

For those of you who still wonder how to write proper reviews, check out Writing Book Reviews As An Author: Inspiration to Make It Easier. Here’s a blog post I wrote about this book with all the details you need (including my review of it).

So that’s what I’ve been up to. Any book recommendations? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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5 thoughts on “Spring Cleaning and Decluttering #IWSG #AuthorLife #BookRecommendations”

  1. I periodically declutter, and it always feels great. I don’t have digital images to declutter, but I was talking to my daughter last night about how I have way too many photos from before my late husband and I started taking digital photos. Plus I have my mom’s photo albums since she died. It might be a winter project to declutter them.

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