Magazines: My Favorites and How To Organize Them

by admin August 16, 2021

How to Organize Magazines #magazines #organization #storage #office #inspiration

Fellow magazine lovers, this post is for you. I'm sharing all of my favorite magazines and additionally, I'm showing you how I keep them organized in order to avoid the clutter and to be able to find exactly what I need when I need it.

Magazines: My Favorites and How To Organize Them

Okay, this may be a really odd/slightly obsessive post to folks who don't read magazines. For those that love magazines as much as I do, this post is going to be a wealth of helpful information.

I noticed the other day that the basket of magazines in my living room was overflowing and magazines were falling onto the floor. It was a nice reminder that my magazine collection needed some attention. I thought I would take you along and show you how I keep my magazines (mostly) in order and the number of magazines I have to a minimum.

I have been a lover of print magazines for as long as I can remember. I used to flip through shelter magazines at my grandparent's house while I waited for my mom to pick me up after delivering newspapers. This love has continued into adulthood. I have subscriptions to 12+ magazines and I still get a tickle of excitement when I open the mailbox and see a new issue.

Since I enjoy magazines so much and subscribe to too many, I never want this joy to become a burden. Years ago I used to have stacks and stacks of magazines everywhere and all they did was overwhelm me. Now, I have a system in place that encourages me to only keep one year's worth of magazines on hand while also saving the stories, content, and recipes, that I love.

Everything is wonderfully organized, I can find what I need, and my love of magazines stays joyful instead of overwhelming. Mission accomplished!

Ready for my system? I'll walk you through step-by-step and when I'm finished, I'll give you a rundown of my favorite magazines.

Magazine Organization Sources:

Since I know there are going to be questions about sources, I thought I would get that out of the way first. These things are not required, but I find them really helpful tools to keep me organized. You'll see how I use them as I explain the process below.

Magazine Organization

Step One: New magazines go into the basket.

The first step is pretty simple. I have a large round basket in my family room. Anytime a new magazine comes into the house, it goes into this basket. Typically I will flip through a new magazine once or twice before it ends up in the basket, but this is where any new magazines go.

Step Two: When the basket is full, move half of the magazines to magazine holders.

When this basket is almost full, it means it's time to organize. (And yes, there have been occasions when this basket is overflowing.) What I do is take the bottom half of the magazines (usually the oldest magazines) and move them to magazine holders that are located in my office.

I have 12 magazines holders. Here is the organizational breakdown:

January and February
March and April
May and June
July and August
September and October
November and December
Fall Magazines/Bookazines
Christmas Magazines/Bookazines
Recipe Bookazines
Home Bookazines
Other
Other

Side note: A bookazine is like a book but in a magazine form. It's a magazine that costs $10-$20 and covers a broad topic like Christmas, Fall Baking, etc.

Based on my current magazine subscriptions, there is just enough room (specifically in the monthly magazine holders) to hold everything comfortably. The magazines will live here for a year. Since they are organized, I can easily reference them when needed.

Step Three: Seasonally sort through magazines older than one year.

As you can see, right now everything has a place. But what happens when things start to overflow?

My goal is to only keep a magazine for one year*.

I work through my stored magazines seasonally. Usually, I have a day or two that I spend brainstorming content for the blog and gathering seasonal inspiration for my home. This is when I'll set aside time to pull a stack of magazines from the magazine holders and go through them one more time before I recycle them.

This will free up space for when the basket in my living room gets full again.

*This is not always the case with the bookazines. I will keep them until I'm done with them or until they no longer fit in the magazine organizers. And in all honesty, there are a few series of bookazines that I can't part with so there are exceptions to every rule.

Step Four: Tear out sheets and recycle the rest of the magazine.

As I mentioned above, I like to give my magazines a final look before I get rid of any given ones.

When I'm flipping through the magazines, I tear out anything I love. It could be a design element, decor idea, recipe, a color scheme, something I want to research more, a product I want to check out, etc. I usually go through a stack of about 20 magazines at a time. It seems like a lot, but I usually watch something on TV, and by the time the movie is over the task is complete. (Lately, I've been doing this in the mornings while I have my coffee instead of scrolling through my phone. It's been a better way to start the day.)

Each tear-out goes into a keep pile and then I recycle the rest of the magazine since it is no longer needed. Pretty simple.

Step Five: Sort tear-out sheets into vinyl pouches.

Next, I take my stack of tear-outs and organize them. I found these zippered vinyl and mesh pouches and I love them. They are a game changer, friends. The size is right, they are durable, have a zipper closure, and take up very little space.

I have about 10 of these pouches. They are sorted by categories such as spring, summer, fall, winter, Christmas, home, etc. I also have one labeled "current" for things that I'm referencing at the moment.

As you can see, each pouch is labeled so I can reference what I need quickly.

I store all of these pouches in a large basket on a shelf in my office. Whenever I need a dose of inspiration or an idea for a project, I can quickly reference what I found to be the most valuable parts of my favorite magazines.

I will also sort through these pouches every so often and trash what I no longer need or what's no longer inspiring to me.

Step Six: Repeat

And that's it! I just repeat this process seasonally or whenever that basket of magazines in my living room is full.

I suppose that this may seem like a daunting process, but isn't any new organizational effort kind of overwhelming? I'm not an organized person by nature, but when I have systems like this in place, I realize how beneficial they can be to mental clarity, productivity, and even happiness.

Now, onto my favorite magazines!

My Favorite Magazines

I'm not going to give you a detailed description of why I like all of these magazines. However, I will list them in order starting with my favorites and working down the list. I like them all, some just make me happier when they appear in my mailbox.

I also did my best to link them all so if you're looking to subscribe, the process should be pretty easy.

Favorite Bookazines:

Christmas Ideas Magazine
BHG Halloween
Taste of Home Seasonal/Compilations

And that's a wrap on my favorite magazines and how I organize them! I really hope you found this helpful!

Have I missed your favorite? Are there magazines I should be reading that aren't on my list? Let me know in the comments below.

The post Magazines: My Favorites and How To Organize Them appeared first on Inspired by Charm.