Do you know how many magazine subscriptions you have? If so, are you reading ALL of them? I only have two subscriptions and sometimes its hard to keep up. Here’s how I manage my magazine subscriptions.
Video Details
Hi guys. It’s Alejandra. And I am standing here in my home office. And I got two magazines in the mail this week and I figure, I haven’t done a video on how I organized my magazines or my process or my system for magazines. So I figured I will do a quick video today on it.
How to Manage Magazine Subscriptions
So I only receive two subscriptions in the mail. I get Inc. Magazine and Real Simple Magazine.
So it’s my love for organizing and then my love being an entrepreneur. Two magazine subscriptions, that’s all I need. When I get them, I try and read them immediately. It doesn’t always happen. I will be completely honest because life is busy, schedules are busy and going through a magazine takes like, I don’t know maybe like an hour and a half to like fully read all the articles and like digest the information and take notes and stuff. I’m going to show you my notes in a second.
What I have seen a lot is that people subscribed to all these magazines and if they don’t read them by the end of the month, the next month when they get like four subscriptions and they don’t read those, they’re now left with a pile of eight magazines to read. And chances are when are you going to go through? When are you going to sit down and go through a pile of eight magazines? Like you probably never going to do that, right? Like you’re already behind, you just want to start fresh with the following month’s magazines and forget about the old ones. So just be aware with the number of subscriptions you are receiving in the mail.
Keeping Magazine Articles Organized
What I do when I receive the magazines is I grab 1” x 2” post-it notes. And every time I see an idea or I see an article or I see something that I want to go back and reference, I’ll put a post-it note at the very top and then write the note at the top of what it is I want to remember or what the tip is or what the website is I want to visit. And I’ll keep this magazine for maybe like a few months, probably not longer than like four months, maybe five months.
If I haven’t gone back and reference to this article or that tool or whatever it was then chances are, I’m not going to do one in the future because I’ve probably forgotten about it. And so then I’ll just go ahead and recycle the whole magazine after those four or five months.
And it’s a great way to save time when you’re thinking of like, “Oh, what was that article I read? Or what was that website I saw?” You could just go back to the magazine and quickly reference your notes and find exactly what you’re looking for. So that’s what I do with my two magazine subscriptions.
Anything more than two subscriptions, I find overwhelming. And having work with clients for almost four years now, it’s very common that people have four or five, sometimes six magazine subscriptions. They’re not reading them. They’re paying for a subscription. They’re wasting paper, wasting trees, and it’s just pointless. So unless you’re really reading your magazine, cut it down to like one or two subscriptions.
How to Deal with a Pile of Unread Magazines
My best advice if you have like a pile of six, seven, eight, nine, even ten magazines just like piled up on your home office or in your living room of family room. Chances are you’re not going to read them like I will be completely honest. You are probably overwhelmed and maybe there somewhat only like one thing you want to read out of these magazines.
What I would do is I would just go ahead and recycle those magazines or drop them off at a doctor’s office or drop them off at a gym where people can actually read them while they’re doing something. And just start fresh next month. Like just starting next month, read the magazine immediately or within like the same week that you get it and yeah, just start fresh like recycle the old and begin fresh next month.
I hope that was helpful. I’ll see you guys soon. Bye!
