The Best Way to Declutter Your Magazines-Learn the Secret!
Although we are in the digital age, many of us still like to purchase physical magazines. If you are like most people, you probably subscribe to a few magazines and have piles of magazines laying around. If your magazine collection is getting out of control, this post will help you figure out the best way to declutter your magazines, so you can enjoy them as intended.
How to Declutter Your Magazines
First, you will need to decide which magazines you really need to keep. If you are holding onto some of them because you may read them “someday,” it may be time to think about canceling that subscription. You can also have the magazines delivered to someone else.
If you read magazines and mark pages to read later, consider tearing out the articles and filing them. Then when you find the time, you could go through the folder and read what interests you.
Recycle unwanted magazines or see about donating them to your local library. Do not donate the magazines if you have removed any pages.
Next, you will have to find a home for the magazines you want to keep. No, stacking them on the kitchen counter or family room coffee table is not an option. 🙂
The secret to managing your magazine collection is to store them in a magazine holder. Then you can place the holder on a desk or bookshelf. Once your magazine holder is full, you will have to remove and recycle one to add another to the collection.
You could also put your magazines in a basket and place it on the floor near your favorite reading area, or keep a tray on your desk just for your magazines. Again, when they are full, you will have to part with some to maintain order.
If you receive a lot of store catalogs, create a special place in your home to store them, and when a new catalog arrives in the mail, recycle the old one.
Of course, you can also go digital with your subscriptions, and they won’t take up any space in your home. Some magazines are available on your iPad, Kindle, or Android device for free if you already have a mail subscription, while others may charge a monthly fee.
Now that you know the best way to declutter your magazines, you can begin clearing the clutter that’s been accumulating in your home.
Do you have magazine clutter in your home? How do you intend to conquer it?
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I don’t collect any current magazines but I do have a lot of old ones. The wrestling magazines are easy because I lost interest in wrestling years ago and it’s all outdated information. The anime magazines I’m a bit more hesitant of if it was a special issue or has articles I want but I think I can trim that group down as well. They aren’t on the current list of projects but I do plan to get to them down the line. I recently just organized all my manuals and magazines so I can find what I want and go over them.
Another idea is, should one have the skills, scan them into the computer. They make free pdf file makers and you can always store them on a CD, DVD, or whatever your storage center of choice is. While I still like having physical copies since they don’t need any more electricity than the lamp and I don’t have to stare at a screen to read them, stuff I’m only somewhat interested in can be handled that way. I’m planning to do that with my comics, but it will also be easier for me to use for research in various writings.
Scanning pages and storing them on your computer or another type of storage is a great idea! This tip would work well for recipes and other topics you might reference often. Thanks for your comment!
The only ones I keep are knitting and crochet magazines, because they have a lot of patterns in them. Right now they are stacked up on a shelf in my partially organized sewing room. I think I’m going to make some kind of holders to corral them – but they are not really something I need access to all the time. And when I want to pull them out to pick out a new project – how do I keep from getting irritated? I only knit two sweaters, and crochet one afghan a year. This is a storage conundrum for me.
The nature of knitting and crochet magazines, disallows sorting them into anything but seasons, because patterns for everything from ladies, to children’s, to home decor can be in the same magazine, with the directions all crammed together in the back of the magazine. Grrrrr. . . .
I have no problems with pitching other paper though. Praise God.
Maybe you could pull out the patterns you want to make and store them in a folder relative to the season. Then whenever the mood hits, you can look through the folder in the correct season and knit to your heart’s content! 🙂
Thanks so much for your comment!
With catalogs when they arrive, I look through it when I have a chance and then ask myself, “will I be ordering from this catalog in the near future?” If the answer is no, it goes out to the recycle bin. If I wish later that I still had the catalog, there is always their website! 🙂
That is a great point! There’s always the internet… 🙂 Thanks for your comment!