Wednesday Weed Out: Magazines and Catalogs



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April 6th was the start of a new series entitled Wednesday's Weed Out. Every Wednesday I will offer a task that will hopefully take 30 minutes or less to complete and will put you on your way to a scaled down home.  Before you begin, create a DONATION BOX that you permanently maintain. When you are ready to donate something, put it in the box. When the box is full, take it to your charity of choice. Don't forget to bring the box back.

Are magazines taking over your house or possibly even mocking you a bit? You haven't read last April's edition and this April's just arrived? Here are some ideas:

1. Start with a reality check: Collect ALL the magazines in your home so you can see how many you have.

2. Sort them in a way that makes sense to you. You can sort by title, by genre, or by month. If you get a few home magazines for example, you may want to sort them by month. (This way all the Easter ideas that come out in April are together so you can easily access those ideas this Spring, etc)

3. Purge any magazines that you just won't be using. Recycle them, donate them to a local charity for a tax deduction, or give to an office you frequent who offers magazines to those waiting.

4. Scale down more?
          a. If you are really ambitious, start tearing out favorite articles that you can't part with and make your own magazine. A 3 ring binder, an accordian file, file folders labeled appropriately can house these.
                                    OR
          b. Scan the articles and be free of paper

5. Getting Catalogs you don't want? Now is a good time to call the company.

6. Moving Foward: Designate one container that is for incoming magazines and catalogs. When the container is full, that is your cue to do this again. Having one container also makes it easy to grab a magazine when you know you will be at the doctor's office, the DMV etc.