Creative Changes Blog

Magazines have a power over us. Those beautiful cover photos and enticing titles that promise a life more beautiful, wealthy, perfectly cooked and glamorous lure us into the their world of perfection. While there is much to be gleaned from those magazine pages, magazine clutter is the issue I want to talk about today.

Recently I was giving a talk about organizing to a teachers group, and during the Q and A at the end of the session was a question regarding this woman's love of magazines, but her inability to keep up with the reading, leading to great piles of magazines all over her house. This is a question that comes up all the time. In fact our local Feng Shui expert, Kathleen Tumpane talked about it in her newspaper column this week. She says that unread magazines are "swamp scum , energetically speaking"

The problem arises when they pile up faster than we can read them, or another problem is that we think that we will refer back to them someday for the one or two items of real interest in each issue. Tossing a $5.00 magazine in the recycling bin seems unforgivable, doesn't it? The fact that we might feel guilty that we spent the money on the magazine, but have not even looked at it is NOT a good reason to keep it, in fact the opposite is true. As the piles accumulate we feel worse and worse. Let's stop that destructive cycle!

Here are a few suggestions on how to manage the magazine madness.

1. Reduce or eliminate the subscriptions - even just temporarily until you catch up.

2. Visit the websites for your favorite magazines and check their archives for past issues. If it is easy enough to find the information you might want in the future, there is no need to save the magazine after you have read it.

3. Pick an organization or two that could really use a source of good reading material - hospitals, your doctor's office, nursing homes, senior centers are just a few that come to mind. As with any of your donatable items, it seems easier when you know they are going to a "good home".

4. Sort you magazine piles by date and get rid of anything older than a year old. If you subscribe to a trade journal that has limited appeal to the broader public, perhaps you have a colleague who could use them.

5. Consider sharing a subscription with friends, family or colleagues. One magazine could easily serve several people, then get donated or recycled.

6. When you first read a magazine use post-it-notes to mark the items of interest, and that will make the review process later much easier.

7. Instead of saving the whole magazine, just tear out the items that you want to refer back to.

8. Create article files for future reference, using categories to make retrieving them easier.

9. When a new magazine arrives, get rid of the previous issue.

10. Store one year of magazines in a magazine holder that will fit on your bookcase neatly.


Any other suggestions from you readers??

Until next time,

Sandra

Labels: magazine clutter, magazines, organizing magazines

The website changethemargins.com is calling for printer owners everywhere to take the simple step of, well, changing their margins from the current luxurious standard 1.25 inches to a the more modest .75 inches. It may sound like a small change, but if everyone in the nation did it, we’d save a little less than a Rhode Island’s worth of trees every year. Does tinkering with Word’s cumbersome preferences scare the fonts right out of you? Another goal of the site is to petition Microsoft to change the default margins on all its Office products.

Changing your margins in Microsoft Word:

Go to “File,” then “Page Setup.”

Once on “Page Setup,” click the “Default” key, and you’ll be offered “Do you want to change the default settings for the page set up? This change will affect all new documents based on the normal template.”

Set each margin to .75 and save an immense amount of paper.

While we are on the saving paper topic, let me just add my tip of the day:

Don't print your e-mails!

There may be the occasional need to print a receipt, or boarding pass, but most of the stuff people are printing out is just a big waste of paper, that does not get read.

OK, I am climbing down off my soap box now.

Until next time,

Sandra

I am talking about the Sarah Pinto 2009 Weekly Planners. The tagline alone is enough to make me want them since I am all about simple, stylish, (hmm, well sometimes) functional and green. My personal favorite is the zebra print.

For those of us who still like our pen and paper planners, this is a beautiful little option. Sarah has put a great deal of thought into every element of this planner.

• The size, 5" x 7" is not so small that you can't read it, but small enough to fit into most business sized purses.
  

• The cover designs are fun and colorful.

• They are made in San Francisco with soy-based inks and recycled paper.

• The layout of a week at a glance, with room to write in each day's square is my personal favorite.

• There is also a section with each month at a glance, which I think is perfect.

Sarah Pinto is a busy mom of two young boys with lots going on in her life to keep track of. She says of her organizational style "I am a non-Blackberry, visually-minded girl on the go!" Sarah is also a believer in supporting good causes because a portion of the proceeds from the sale of these lovely little planners goes to California Pacific Medical Center Pediatric Cardiology.

Visit Sarah's website for her full story and to order your Simple, Stylish, Functional and Green 2009 planner.



Until next time,

Sandra

Labels: 2009 calendars, 2009 planners, calendars, organizing tools, weekly planners