i mean, really Sam!? are you ever going to make your way through all of those magazines and catalogs?

throughout the holiday season i did a pretty good job of recycling magazines right away. when i brought in the mail and knew i wasn’t interested in the catalog, it immediately went into the recycling bin. it never made its way to my bedside table.

however, you know how it is – some of those catalog covers are SO inviting. you know you’re going to find something inside that you absolutely love. and i happen to be one of those women that gets stuck in my own pipe dream of “one day i am going to sit down with a big cup of coffee and read through that entire stack”. 

ahem – back to reality!

each time i received a new, pretty catalog or magazine, i placed it on my bedside table….and there it sat. it sat there through the holiday season. i never opened it – and never opened the other 30 (or more) that sat along side it. now here they are collecting dust and taking up space.

oh – and let me remind myself – the holiday season IS over.

today i had enough and it was time to purge. first thing was to lay out all of the magazines/catalogs in different categories…

any magazines that had a coupon code were set aside. i later pulled out the code and placed it inside my coupon binder…

next, i scanned through my stack of Food Network magazines. this is one of the 2 subscriptions i pay for. since i was months behind, i quickly scanned through each of them and pulled out recipes that looked interesting…

and the only copy i kept was the most recent issue…

my other paid subscription is People magazine. love love love to read this one but, as is evidenced by the huge stack, i don’t have a whole lot of time to read it. again, i grabbed the 2 most recent issues and the rest went into the recycling stack…

i didn’t even bother opening any of these catalogs…

the above stack included clothing catalogs, home catalogs, toy catalogs, etc. i figure if i really had an interest in an item inside, i can find it online. and who knows, it may not be available anymore since most of those catalogs were from the holidays.

when the job was done, here was my stack of recycled magazines…

more importantly, here is my newly organized bedside table…

muuuuuuuch better!

now that my magazine collection is back under control, i thought i would share some other great magazine tips with you!

there are times when i do want to keep a magazine for a while. it should be no surprise that i love thumbing through organization magazines. and i do enjoy keeping them for reference. when i read through a great organization magazine like this one…

i keep a pen and pad of post-it notes along side. then when i find a great idea or something i would like to follow up on, i label that page…

i have found this to be a great time saver when i am trying to find something, like that fun idea for garage organization…

i keep magazines like this in a magazine file on our office desk…

and label it “reference”…

every couple months i scan through that reference box. if i haven’t referenced that magazine in the last few months, it gets recycled.

another idea – when i pull out recipes from my Food Network magazines, i file them away in our office desk (i shared info about this tip in my recipe binder post a few months ago). each week when i work on our menu plan, i look through the recipe file to find 1 or 2 new recipes to try that week.

another idea – you know when you’re reading a magazine and find a gift your sister or mother-in-law would love? but then when their birthday comes around you are totally stumped about what to buy them?

while i am reading magazines or catalogs and stumble across those great gift ideas, i pull that page out of the magazine and file it away in our office desk. now when that birthday comes around, i can reference my file for the idea i spotted a few months ago…

i pull all of the categories together with a paper clip and label with a post-it note…

it’s a website where you can unsubscribe from catalogs, coupons, credit card offers, phone books, circulars, and more. it’s a super easy FREE service! once you receive the item you no longer want coming in the mail, just log in and report it. they take care of everything else!

if you’re too busy to do that, there is a paid service they offer for less than $7 – you send them your junk mail and they take care of everything for you.

how are you handling all of your magazines and catalogs? i would love to hear from you so share in the comment section!

(i linked up this project with Delightful Order)