Get Organized Month - Declutter Magazines

January is "Get Organized Month" as declared by the National Association of Professional Organizers. So I'm going to take a different task each day to help you get organized.

Today let's attack magazines.

1. Go through your magazines and toss those you know you have no use for any more. To double your time, do this task while watching the Rose Bowl Parade or game, a movie, or another activity that lends itself to multi-tasking.

2. As you're going through your magazines, ask yourself if you really want to continue the subscriptions you have. If you don't have time to read your magazines, it's wasting your money and cluttering up your house!

3. For those magazines that are left, cut out articles or ideas you want to keep or read. Keep a file for those articles you want to read and toss.

4. For those articles or ideas you want to keep, make files for each different category or create a binder for decorating ideas, scrapbooking examples, etc. Use plastic protector sheets and just slide the ideas into the sheets. If you place a piece of paper in the protector sheet, you can store an idea on each side.

5. If there are entire magazines you want to keep, get some magazine boxes and label them accordingly. Give yourself a limit on what you will keep. For example, if you decide to keep one year's worth of magazines, remove the oldest one when you receive and have read the newest one.

6. Decide if you want to organize your magazines by magazine titles, topics, or by month (if you want to look at ideas, recipes, etc. seasonally).

7. Keep your current magazines in a magazine rack or box and take them along when you might need to wait for a doctor's appointment. You may also want to take along your file of "need to read" articles.

Now, doesn't that feel great?!