Do you have a stack of magazines that looks like this?

It’s time to slim down. This will be the easiest 20 pounds you lose all month. After you’ve used a few to make boot shapers, go through these steps.

• Don’t over-think this. Most magazines repeat the same type of articles year over year. January is always organizing and fitness topics in the women’s magazines, for example.
• If you didn’t have time or energy to read last year’s magazines, what makes you think you’ll be able to do so this year? Time to let them go, like I did with the stack on the right.

• Recycling is the best place glossies. With very, very rare exceptions, your magazines are not valuable. Sorry. You are welcome to check EBay for yourself. Just be sure to check the sold listings, not the listings for sale!
• There is a self-maintaining system for culling your magazines and catalogs, similar to how libraries manage their stacks. Trouble is, very few people are willing to part with information once it comes into their homes. If you are ready, set up 12 slots like those below.

• If you want to just save the one or two essential articles from a stack of old magazines, then be sure to digitize them. By scanning them properly, you can easily search by topics and key words so that you can find those articles again in the future. Otherwise, you are guaranteed to just build up more paper clutter with ragged edges.
• Remember, the Internet is your friend. You can often retrieve that type of information, and sometimes the exact same article, or better yet, updated information, from online sources right when you really need it.
• With the few that you have left, let the container be your guide. When it gets full, time to purge.

A client just told me she went through several years of old Christmas magazines last month, and she convinced herself that saving magazines wasn’t as valuable as she thought it would be. She didn’t keep any of the old articles.

It’ll take you less than 30 minutes to downsize a stack like I did above, and you’ll start over with new magazines and catalogs coming in the next day.

This post is part of my 31 days of 30-minute Organizing Projects. Be sure to subscribe for daily emails with projects you can complete in just a few minutes to start your New Year off right.