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"Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries."
--  Corita Kent 

 

 

 

by Marcia Ramsland, "The Organizing Pro

           Recently I organized a client's finely furnished home office where she had not one, not ten, but ALL of Oprah's signature "O" magazine collection "I won't give those up for anything," Victoria declared. She even had them in red leather magazine holders, showing they were truly a prized possession.

           I thought that was perhaps taking a magazine series a little far -- until I started to go through my personal collection of Real Simple magazines this week. I had every one from the first issue in 2003! And they can be a "thick" magazine with almost 300 pages ... and very beautiful covers. Enticing to keep while filling about three feet of precious shelf space. I needed to downscale and use the collected information. For what? To start my next book, Simplify Your Space. How ironic.

Magazines - A Library of Knowledge or Household Clutter?

         If you have more than three magazines in a collection, know there isn't usually enough time to read them all. Nor is there a desire to toss them out, until you consider the fact that they are 75% advertising with 25% valuable articles.
       
        Are the collections good for something? Yes, if you use them within six months of receiving them (after that the information is dated and you're behind already.)
 
       One class participant had every National Geographic for years in her collection until one night she and her husband heard a loud crash in the basement. The shelves holding them collapsed and woke them up!
      
       I called the library the next day to help her part with her treasures. "Do we collect National Geographic magazines?" the librarian chuckled. "Only if they are 75 years old or prior to that."
That confirmed it. Even the libraries are flooded with magazines. Use them and pass them on right away. Sooner is always better than later.

How Do You Sort Magazines and Use the Articles?

     Try this to catch up on your magazine reading this summer.

Step #1: Gather all your magazines on one table. Put them in neat piles by title and year.

Step #2: Count how many you have of each kind. If it takes 30 minutes to read each one, how much reading do you have ahead of you?

Step #3: Decide what to do with them with the following three choices:

   1- Speed Up the Cleanup. Recycle anything older than this year. Vow to read the current year and keep up from now on.

  2-  Start Up a New Habit: New One In, Old One Out. Even if you have to read it on the spot, keep just the current issue on hand.

  3-  Snap Up Your Favorite Articles. Instead of tossing issues, keep the good articles and toss the rest of the magazine which is mostly advertisements.
       
      This last method is what I did with my Real Simple magazines prior to this year. Try this:

         A. "Score" the Table of Contents page with an open scissors blade run down the page close
               to the spine. Gently tear it out from top to bottom.

         B. Circle the articles you want to keep and look for their pages.
         
         C. Cut each article out with the same "scoring" down the spine with your scissors. Staple
               article pages together.

         D. Take a deep breath and cut off the cover the same way (gasp). It's really okay to do this.

         E. Paperclip the articles under the cover, or staple them all together.

        Now pack your beach bag and head to the pool with several months of magazine reading distilled into a fraction of an inch. You'll be amazed at how little space this takes up, and how many good articles you missed reading while thumbing through them all these months!
 
Rewards of Cleaning Up Your Magazine Collections

         There are two big rewards for cleaning up your magazine collections. One, you gain invaluable space and the beauty of an organized home or office. Two, you gain the knowledge from the articles and have fun reading them. Three, you get your money's worth out of the subscriptions you paid for!        

Today's Paper Tip:

     Be generous with your magazine subscriptions by calling your local hospital, school,  doctor or dentist's office to see if they would like to use your magazines once you read them. Once you find a good home for them, you'll be motivated to read and recycle them to a worthy cause regularly.

Copyright © 2006 Life Management Skills - All Rights Reserved
San Diego, CA 92129 * (858) 484-6914 * Email: Marcia@OrganizingPro.com
www.OrganizingPro.com  - "The Place to Go to Simplify Your Everyday Life!"