Wondering how to organize magazines at home and at work?

Are you looking for some practical pointers to keep those magazines tidy and in order?

If you subscribe to a lot of print magazines, then you know how challenging it can be to read everything.

There’s always a new publication delivered to your door…and stacks of magazines that have yet to be read.

How do you manage magazines so you can actually read them?

In this post, you’ll find several helpful hints to rein in your magazine reading and keep things organized.

Before we begin, thanks to N.S.I. for suggesting this blog post topic!

Keep things contained.

Do your print magazines seem to float about the house or office?

Do you find it difficult to keep track of everything?

An easy way to keep things contained is to set up a magazine collection area in your home.

You can use either a large box, basket or magazine holders to collect magazines as soon as they arrive in your home via postal mail or purchase at a store.

Evaluate magazine types.

Some magazines are quick reads, you flip through them, find an article to read, flip through and are done with the issue.

Other magazines require more time, attention, and focus.

Which of your magazines are easily digestible? Which magazines take a bit more time to chew and digest?

See if you can incorporate different magazines into your daily schedule.

Think: quick reads for short breaks and longer reads for extended periods of time.

Set aside reading time.

Make a habit to schedule reading time in your calendar.

It could be once every week or once a month, or whatever time frame you so desire.

Just be sure to schedule the time for yourself to cozy up and read your magazines.

Similarly, you could incorporate reading magazines into your daily habit.

You could browse magazines before you go to bed or during your daily commute.

Give magazine issues a “read by” date.

It can be difficult keeping up with magazines with different publication dates.

Some magazines are published on a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis.

Make a mental or physical note of how long you’ll keep a particular type of magazine.

For example, weeklies will tend to pile up faster than monthlies, so you might want to make a point to keep no more than two past issues of weeklies at a time.

Likewise, you would schedule your weekly magazine reading time more frequently than monthlies.

Make an assessment of older issues.

Do you have a backlog of magazines lying around at home?

Make a point to leaf through several issues on a regular basis until you’ve cleared through the stacks.

This will certainly depend on the total number of magazines you have in your possession, but any bit of movement is a good start!

Alternatively, if you are interested in getting rid of a chunk of clutter in one fell swoop, you can take a more direct route.

Remove your mailing labels from the magazines, recycle the stack of magazines, and call the experience a lesson learned.

Unsubscribe from publications.

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of magazines you receive? Tired of receiving certain publications?

If you are not actively reading magazines, it might be time to bite the bullet and cancel your subscription(s).

What’s the best part about this approach? For starters, your home will be a little less cluttered for it.

Besides, if you find you really miss a magazine, guess what?

You can always resubscribe to the magazine.

How about you? Which of these tips are you going to use to organize magazines at home or work? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!