Organize Magazines

Organize magazines to take full advantage of them, instead of wasting money and creating clutter. Magazines are a great source for information, inspiration, entertainment and even relaxation.

Gather all your magazines and bring it to a room where you can sort them. If you have a lot of magazines, you may not be able to finish organizing them in one sitting.  So choose a space where you can leave them undisturbed until you are done organizing them - like a guest room or craft room.

First step when you organize magazines is to decide which ones you really want to keep. 

Recycle/sell or donate the magazines you don’t want to keep to local gyms, library, doctor’s office, salons etc.

Now go through each magazine you decided to keep and separate them into two piles - one pile if you need to keep the entire magazine and  another pile if you only need to keep specific pages like articles, recipes or columns.

Get manilla folders, shoe boxes or large plastic food storage bags for each pile of magazines where you only need to keep specific pages. Tear out the pages you need and put them in the folder. Recycle the rest of that magazine.  

If you don’t like to tear the pages, copy those pages. You can print them in color or black and white depending on your preference. 

The advantage of doing this is that you can donate or swap the magazines with  friends or family since there are no missing pages. This is also good if you plan to sell them at yard/garage sales.

Then put the pages in a sheet protector and file in a 3 ring binder. Use divider tabs to separate and label each category like  “decorating”, “fashion”, “gardening”, “health”, “motivational/self help”, “recipes” etc. Arrange the categories in alphabetical order and pages within each category by date/title/subject. You can create sub categories within the main category if you have a lot of categories.  For example, under “decorating” you can have accessories, fabric, furniture, paint etc. or bathroom, bedroom, kitchen etc. Recipes can also be stored in the recipe binder explained in the organize recipes article. 

You can also use separate binders for each brand of magazine or category and label the binder so you know the contents at a glance. This way you can find what you need easily without taking up valuable space or time. 

Another option is to use a scrap book. Just cut out what you need and paste it onto the scrapbook page. You can use index tabs that are write-on or with printable inserts to create labels for each category and stick to the edge of the scrapbook pages. 

You can put the binders or scrap book in a book shelf or a cabinet.

Another space saving idea is to scan the pages you need and have them on your computer. Create folders for each category. 

Now sort and make piles of the magazines you like to keep by title such as “TIME”, “PEOPLE”, “BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS”, “O”, “VOGUE” etc.

Sort them again by week/month with the latest one on top.

Purchase magazine files/holders to organize magazines. They are very economical and prevents the magazines from getting damaged. This will allow you store the magazines vertically making it easy to access them unlike stacking where you have to take the ones on top to get to the ones on the bottom. Magazine files/holders come in a variety of colors and styles, so you can coordinate them with your home decor. 

Get separate magazine files for each brand of magazine. Put magazines inside the magazine file in chronological order with the spine/binding facing outward so that you can easily find the magazine you are looking for. For this you will have to put the shorter side of the magazine file facing you and the taller side facing the back of the book shelf or cabinet.

Arrange the magazine files in a book shelf or cabinet in alphabetical order of the title of the magazine.

If you only want to keep certain issues like holidays (easter, halloween christmas etc.) organize magazines by season and assign a magazine file for each season. You can sort magazines within each season in alphabetical order of title and then by year within each title. 

If you don’t have many magazines, you can use magazine racks. They come in different varieties like wall mount or stand alone. Depending on the space available, choose one that works best for you. 

After you organize magazines, maintain the results. Flag the pages you want to keep as you read them. Tear, copy or scan the pages every month or as soon as possible and sell/donate/recycle the magazines. Consider recycling magazines after a year. Then you can reuse the magazine files.  

Cancel subscriptions that you don’t want anymore. Only subscribe magazines that you read or want to read and have time to read. This will not only save money but also time and clutter. Also, don’t subscribe just because it’s free! 

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