After clearing 50 years of magazine clutter that had taken over every conceivable space in a client’s home, I was trying to figure out why it is, that it becomes such a challenge to letting them go?

I don’t know whether the same counts for you that reading magazines is some sort of escapism? I literally lose myself when paging through a glossy magazine; it transports me to a different plane, a plane where dreams are made.  I travel the world without leaving the comfort of my home, I’m inspired by people’s achievements, get ideas that are workable and am motivated to attempt things that often are out of my comfort zone.

It is understandable then, that with this warm fuzzy feeling one experiences when reading magazines, it becomes a challenge to let them go. We all know that magazines are quite pricey but other excuses for keeping them are:

·        You still want to go back to that inspirational article

·        You  are afraid that you might never find the valuable information again

·        You still want to try that recipe

·        You’ve always been looking for that kind of a pattern

·        Wow, what a good idea, you need to remember that!

·        You will finish reading the magazine when you have some time again

·        This is your dream destination, you really want to go there some time.

Unfortunately all these wonderful reasons or excuses lead to magazine clutter and overwhelm. Not only don’t you ever find the article or aspirational idea again when you want it, but the recipe has also funnily enough disappeared!

What should you do to keep track of what you want to know, without hanging on to all those magazines of which some are still sitting in their plastic wrapper?

1.     Subscribe to digital magazines. Do the sensible thing and think of all the trees that you’ll save and save the articles that you want to keep in digital folders. It takes time to get used to read on a digital device but I love the fact that you can even page like a paper magazine on some apps.

2.     Search the web for the information that you need or browse Pinterest for creative ideas and patterns.

3.     Make time to read.  If you don’t schedule time or create a ritual to read your magazines, they will become clutter and end up just sitting in the magazine rack or in a paper pile. I know not all of you will be able to do this, but I like to read an article as I have my coffee when coming home from work just to unwind for a while. Others might like to take a pamper session on the weekend and read it from cover to cover.  

4.     Take action, if you love the tactile feeling of paper and the languid action of paging through a magazine, it doesn’t mean that you need to hang on to it. Take action, scan articles, ideas or recipes and save them digitally in folders or rip them out and file them in binders with folders for each category, so that you can reference them easily when you need, them without searching through piles of magazines.

5.     Donate the magazines to a worthy cause. Sometimes it is easier to let go if you know that someone else will get use of it elsewhere. Retirement homes need extra reading material for their inhabitants. Nursery- and primary schools are constantly looking for magazines for the kids to cut out. Here I just want to reiterate that they be current magazines and age appropriate.

6.     Set a limit. Limit yourself to the number of magazines you subscribe to and those that you are keeping.

7.     Recycle the magazines when you declutter or once you have cut out the pages that you need.  

8.     Take constant action! With every magazine that comes into your home, one should leave – keeping magazine overwhelm in check.

Have a wealth of information, inspiration and motivation at your fingertips whilst not having piles of magazines sitting there waiting to be dealt with and letting you feel guilty about not doing anything about it.