Conquering Chaos: Reading Materials
Do you have piles of unread magazines or newspapers? Are they adding to your clutter?
Instead of saving magazines or newspapers to read someday here are tips you can use to tame your reading materials:
- Skim your magazines and newspapers for articles of interest when you first get them.
- Clip the articles and place them into a binder or folder.
- Take the binder or folder with you wherever you go so when you have a few minutes you can read something.
- Make it a habit to remove one article when you add a new one whether you have read it or not.
- Donate your periodicals to a nursing home, senior center, library, school or hospital.
- Set aside a regular time to read and/or to sort through your reading materials.
But what if you already have piles that are overwhelming you?
Decide if you really want to go through all those piles and if you do schedule time on your calendar. It will help if you determine how far back in your piles you will go to clip and save (three months might be a reasonable suggestion). Don’t get sidetracked reading the articles as you clip them. Create your reading binder or folder and remove the now sorted periodicals from your home as soon as possible. Remember you may have to schedule more than one session to tackle your piles.
If you decide you want to start from scratch with the process described and eliminate your current piles, select a day to donate or recycle your magazines and newspapers, box them up and immediately get them out of your home.
You may find that you will again be catching up on your reading instead of dreading it. Do you have that date scheduled yet?
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2 Responses to “Conquering Chaos: Reading Materials”
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Good attack at the problem… but
1. Re. # 5. What office or charity wants magazines with the pages all cut up (when you took out the “interesting articles to read later)? Toss them?
2. Storage of “hobby” magazines is a mounting problem. Any hints? I’ve tried hard-cover binders, but the shelf boxes seem best for me.
3. Organizing those clippings to read and use later is a feat. Nothing works for me. I never get to read them later. I think the read now… and use now is the only answer for me.
4. Donating the “Hobby” magazines to an up and coming hobbier is one idea that works for me.
5. OR placing them in an auction among the hobby club is another way to dump them.
Thanks for the stimulation at facing up to the problem. Now I must Do something.
George
Thanks for your comments. Here is some additonal information in response:
1. You need to use your judgement. The library would probably not want an incomplete magazine, but if I only tear out one or two pages I would still donate to the other places.
2. I think you need to find what works for you which are the shelf boxes. I would suggest limiting yourself to a specified number and purge regularly.
3. Again, congrats on finding what works for you. Another option is to schedule time every week to read.
4. Love the idea of donating the hobby magazines to an up and coming hobbier. What a great idea! All of us in professional organizations or hobby clubs could find a student or novice that would love our used magazines.
5. Another great idea you suggested is placing them in an auction among the hobby club or just organizing a “help yourself” table at a meeting.
The important message is 1. to set limits for your magazines/reading materials, 2. find out what works best for you and 3. implement it.
So when are you scheduling a day to purge your hobby magazines?
Best of luck!
Michaeine