I’ve honed down my monthly magazine subscriptions to: Better Homes & Gardens and House Beautiful (for home inspiration – though I’m thinking of ending the last one), Martha Stewart (for recipes and crafty ideas), Lucky (fashion), Money (investment inspiration) and San Diego Magazine (for local stuff). I consider it to be a small number ;-), but still I have stacks and stacks waiting for me in my office because I rarely have the time to actually read them – and when I do, I rarely want to toss them!
My solution isn’t quite rock solid yet, but to keep from a true mountain of magazines I do try to dog ear pages as I go and then pull those pages to keep tear sheets of favorite ideas only. It keeps me from saving 100 pages of a magazine I love to just my top 5-10 pages. I mark the pages up with a sharpie before I store them so I know what on that page I loved. If I have time I clip around that item, too (for example, might be the dining room chairs or rug and not really the entire room).
Here’s where my plan sort of falls apart. Right now I have a wire basket at the top of of one of my bookshelves in my office that I toss all tear sheets into. Then I have sort of a two part system that includes filing a craft picture under ‘craft ideas’, or adding it to a plastic sleeve for future inclusion in some sort of inspiration binder.
That’s my system for over three years… it needs a bit of work.
On the plus I have a small(er) stack of magazines to keep around, on the negative I have an ever growing tear sheet pile (of stuff too good to toss) that needs some love! How do you sort your favorite magazines/ideas?
You can take pictures with the document camera in
Evernote and they will be searchable! It even recognizes handwriting.
I stored all of my favorites in a binder before I switched to all digital subscriptions on my iPad (you can bookmark favorite pages and write notes). There is something about flipping through a binder!
That sounds like an amazing idea! Was thinking about the photography option – but searchable text would be awesome!
I’ve been thinking about scanning and uploading to my pinterest boards.
Love that idea.
First I sort through the stacks and see if I can find the recipe/product/idea online and pin it instead, then throw the sheet away. If I can’t find it online I’ll save it in a binder, in sheet protectors. I know…nerd!
I NEED to do this, that would really minimize my pile!
So funny that this came in my e-mail box today, as I just began trying to keep my tear sheets. I bought a nice little hanging file box and have labeled the folders and am now putting the pages in the appropriate folder, i.e. recipes, home design, craft projects, etc. Good luck with your organizing!
I bought three nice hardback notebooks from the Martha Stewart range and clip the home, fashion and other inspiration into those and with recipes I tear them out and if I try them and like them I write them in my cookbook and if I don’t make them within 6 months I throw them away.
My husband hates it though, he wonders why I can’t just throw the magazine away or keep it. He’s gotten used to it now.
Good luck!
Angel
That’s what I’m thinking now – some sort of binder. I love your 6 month rule! I need to stick to that! Thanks for sharing.
I recommend scanning them onto a thumb drive after you have doodled your thoughts onto them. Good luck!
I’ve thought about taking pictures of them as we’ll. good idea about scanning!