Organizing Magazine Subscriptions

Whether at work or at home, many of our clients struggle with magazine clutter. Magazines seem to pile up faster than any other kind of paper, and people save them under the assumption that they will get to reading them “someday”. So often, these publications just pile up and collect dust. Here are some strategies that you can use to minimize magazine clutter in your world:

• Cancel Subscriptions – If you are always behind or it becomes a chore to keep up with a particular magazine, then consider canceling the subscription. If you subscribe to many publications, pick your top favorites and cancel the rest. You can always pick up an occasional issue if you are going on vacation. Like many of you, I love my magazines, but after struggling to keep up with them, I canceled two of my subscriptions (one personal and one business related). I was surprised at how relieved I felt to not have the “pressure” of keeping up with them.

• Subscribe Online – Many publications now offer online subscriptions. This is a great option if you use your publication primarily for reference. If you need to look something up, you can go online and search the current and back issues for your desired topic, without the clutter.

• Tear out Articles – Keep only those articles that interest you and recycle the rest. The FIRST time you go through the magazine, tear out the articles that interest you. You can either read and toss them when you are done, scan them and store them on your computer, or store them in a 3-ring binder using divider tabs to sort the articles by topic.

• Label – Some publications have wonderful information in them and are worth keeping. If that is the case, label and store them so that you can find them again quickly. Magazine file organizers work well. They stand the magazines up and you can store them on a shelf. They are easy to label as well.

Whether you find yourself buried in publications at home, at work, or both, try implementing some of these strategies and watch your piles of magazines disappear.

–Donna Lindley, Certified Professional Organizer and owner of Rochester Hills, MI-based Organize Your World, Inc.

To find more magazine organizers, visit Organizeit.com