If you’re brand new to this blog, it won’t take you long to figure out that simplify 101 is never about one-size-fits-all solutions. I love seeing how that comes through in our workshop forums! Workshop participants pose questions like the one below, and Aby, along with other participants, offers suggestions.
One of our Organizing 101 participants recently shared this dilemma:
“I’m an interior decorator and collect tons and tons of magazines. I always cringe at throwing them away, although I’m not really sure I will go back through them. Any great ideas for storing them? They are going to take over the house!”
Here are a few responses from other participants:
“I would think that using magazine files would help. There are lots of options for color, design, etc. I would keep them by magazine title & date, but with your line of work it might be best to keep them by category (kitchen & bath, bedroom, living room, etc??) We have tons of magazines, and I don’t like to part with them either sometimes. I’m thinking of doing something similar with ours to keep them neat and organized. Good luck!!”
“I have the same problem… I LOVE magazines and all the ideas they inspire! Most of my magazines are for fun reading only. I tear out favorite articles when the next issue arrives, and add them to my binder of inspiration (something I finally started doing after taking Organize Your Paper Clutter!). I save favorite magazines (intact, not articles ripped out) in nice-looking magazine boxes. Every 6 months or so, I’ll go through one of the boxes and flip through the magazines. If there are a few pictures or articles I want to hold on to, they go into
the binder as well. If I love the whole magazine, I’ll save it. The rest get recycled or donated to the library. It’s not a perfect system, but I’m not drowning in magazine clutter anymore. Good luck!”
And here is Aby’s response:
“Great suggestions from your classmates! What do you think about the idea of tearing out the pages you would use in the future? I think that if you’re unlikely to go back through them, you should really consider if it makes sense to purchase storage for them. Also, where do you keep them now? Is there a place in your home where you could keep them that would make it more likely that you would access them?”
Aby
Do you have a great way to organize or store your magazines? We’d love for you to share with us in the comments below.
Happy Organizing!
I try to either purchase individual digital subscriptions through the magazine publisher or through Coverleaf.
Since most of a magazine is ads, it doesn’t make sense to me to save it intact.
When I read it, I have a large red colored pencil with me. I circle what interests me, rip the page out, then file the article. This way I can always find what I’m looking for, and when I want inspiration I just pull out the appropriate file. No backlog of magazines this way either!
I store my magazines in 3 open, cloth-covered bins on our coffee table shelf. While reading, I fold down the page corners for things that interest me. About every 6 months I go through the bins, and tear out the marked pages. Depending on what it is, I’ll file it away for a later date, or look it up online and email it to myself for later reference (this is the preferred method for recipes).
If you want to get rid of paper – take a picture of the page with your phone and save it using a tool like Evernote. It syncs your phone and computer and you can create different notebooks of images. You can also clip websites and file them in the same notebook, that way it is all together. Pinterest works too, but Evernote is private, which is nice.
Fantastic ideas here, ladies. Thanks so much for sharing!
~Jennifer
Magazine Box / Drawer – Priority Mail Box Hack
I use USPS Priority Mailing boxes (Medium Flat Rate Box) and assemble it after I cut a straight line across the top at about 10.5″ and use the left over part of the box to support the backs of the magazines and cut a slanted line to sort through and pick out issues that I want to read. A stack of these side by side on a foldable book case and with some spray paint you can make it look like you bought them for $10 each at Target but you know you got them for free at the Post Office. Please recycle:)
Great idea to create your own magazine file sorter. Great DIY project! Thanks for sharing.