Comments on: Reader question: Magazine clutter & organization

By: Carol

Carol — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:27:45 +0000

The two local libraries I visit regularly have boxes in the front hallway filled with donated magazines. There seems to be really good turnover, which says that people are delighted to have the chance to read your discarded magazines.

By: Lisa Z

Lisa Z — Mon, 21 May 2007 23:24:42 +0000

If you have extra magazines laying around, you should send them to our troops overseas. Sometimes they need something to read, and their options are usually limited. If you need a place to send ‘em, go to anysoldier.com. My hubby is listed there

By: mikey

mikey — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:05:10 +0000

We have a large inbox-style wooden tray that holds our magazines. After one of us reads a magazine, we Sharpie that we’ve read it (“Mike read”) and return it to the tray. That way, when the other one of us finishes reading it, it goes into recycling right away. No more keeping magazines around, wondering if the other people in your house have read it yet.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 05:21:20 +0000

I make a small pile next to my bedstand, then, when I have a doctor’s or dentist appt I take the finished stack with me and leave them at the office. Sometimes I take them to the gym. I make sure to cut out or black out my name and address first. I love the fact that there’s all these feminist and progressive magazines at the fancy gym, and have fun watching other people read them.

By: Alice

Alice — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 00:09:57 +0000

I have given some of my more picturesque magazines to the local high school art department. I just save my old mags in a handled grocery bag until its full and then haul them in. I would imagine daycare centers, after school programs, even older adult program may be able to use magazines for craft projects. It would be worth checking this out rather than just trash them.

By: Nicolette

Nicolette — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 23:16:44 +0000

I love Mary-Lynn’s recommendations…I have to get more aggressive in the rip/toss stage! My mags sit too long in the pile stage!

When it comes to organizing the ripped out pages I have a similar routine. I keep a series of file folders labeled with my traditional categories, a stack of file folders and a Sharpee nearby when I am going through the pile of mags. I immediately file the pages that fit in an established folder. The remaining rips are sorted and new folders are made on the spot.

Then when I am looking for a book recommendation, a travel destination, vendor, recipe, restaurant, inspiration, etc. I just pull the file. The next step is to boot files that aren’t accessed in 3 months!

By: Matthew Cornell

Matthew Cornell — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:52:08 +0000

I recommend to clients the “Rip and Read” technique. Toss each magazine in your inbox, then process them one at a time by looking at the table of contents, selecting articles you want to read, >cut them out

By: michael stewart

michael stewart — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:20:47 +0000

In place of an actual magazine rack, we use baskets.

We purchase a coffee table from IKEA that has six cubby holes and some neat rectangular baskets from Target fit perfectly inside.

We have one basket for recent magazines, one for kids’ books from the library, etc… It makes tidying up (w/ kids) so much quicker.

By: melissa

melissa — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:56:10 +0000

I often sell magazines to Half Price Books.

Also, Like above, I tear out inspiration and paste them in an inspiration journal. (I usually read lifestyle/decor mags.)

Just found this site via ApartmentTherapy. This is great!

By: Jeri Dansky

Jeri Dansky — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:07:44 +0000

Bunches of good advice here. For similar thoughts (and more neat magazine racks), see this. And here's another nice magazine rack. One futher thought: Instead of just throwing out the magazInes you've read (in the recycling bin, of course), you might first offer them up on freecycle.org. Obviously, that would only apply if you didn't use Mary-Lynne's rip-things-out approach. And it's only feasible for some magazines - no one is likely to want weekly news magazines, for example. But I've seen many magazines go to new homes on my local freecycle group.

By: Jerry Brito

Jerry Brito — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:15:33 +0000

Mary-Lynn: Great suggestion on ripping out articles. Your comments provoked a couple thoughts. First, somethin I didn’t mention in the post, when I get a magazine in the mail, the first thing I do is go through it and remove all the inserts and throw them away. Those things drive me nuts as they always fall out. Second, I like that you put the ripped-out articles in a binder you take with you. I have a to-read folder that I always have with me. As I surf the web or go through my workday I print out articles and papers that I want to read at some point. They all go in my to-read folder (which is more of a small pendaflex). So do magazines and other brochures and things I pick up along the way. Whenever I have time before a meeting gets started or on the Metro, I pull out my folder and read. Whenever I’m done with something that I don’t want to keep for reference, I toss it. This helps me make the most of my time and makes sure I get thru all my reading.

By: Mary-Lynn

Mary-Lynn — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:03:36 +0000

I read many magazines as well and here’s what I do:

1. They come in and get into a neat stack on an end table. No, it really is a neat stack. I could use a magazine rack of some kind but I have enough other junk that I don’t want more junk to hold other junk.

2. Every so often one will get pulled from there and travel with me or go to the bedroom, but it always goes back there.

3. About every two weeks I make a point of spending an evening going through them. I rip out the articles I think I might want to read and toss the rest in the recycling. I’m pretty brutal about this ripping/toss thing but I do keep a lot of the articles. You’d be amazed at how much smaller the pile gets when you remove all that advertising.

Actually, you probably shouldn’t be amazed.

4. The articles go into a plastic zip folder. That folder goes with me when I travel and I can easily get through many of the articles that way and equally easily toss or recycle them along the way.

5. I keep a few of them for various reasons. It’s this step that I’m personally struggling with – how to organize them so I can find them later (not physically – they all go into a magazine rack) but actually know what I’ve read when and why.

In summary: that ripping out step is the key. You subscribe to magazines because you like the content – they’re quite disposible objects so dispose of the advertising as quickly as possible and keep the parts you really want. After doing this for a while it becomes quite easy to decide which are worth keeping and which you should cancel.