I get a few magazines delivered to my home: Smithsonian, craft and cooking magazines, alumni journals. I have to admit that I have let quite a backlog develop over time. Plus, I have saved the cooking and craft magazines over the years because they have recipes and projects I want to try.

I need to get these organized. So, here are my ideas about how to control the magazine clutter.

First, I need to divide the magazines into ones I'm likely to want to keep after I've read them from teh ones I'll read and recycle. It's also worth checking as to weather a school or assisted livig facility might want the latter.

Next, I'll attack the magazines that can be discarded ultimately. The sooner I read/review them, the faster that pile drops.

Then it's on to the ones that include content I want to keep. Moving forward, I attach a Post-it to each magazine's cover. When I see a recipe, article, or project I want to keep, I note it on the Post-It. That way, I know what content I liked without having to guess which issue or re-read the whole magazine. I'll do that for back issues as time allows. Ultimately, I'll need to pull these articles and file them in binders or accordion files. That might take a while — both to develop the system and to go through years of backlog. But once it's done, off to the recycling bin and goodbye clutter.

How do you manage your magazines?