Welcome to the final part of the ADHD Paper Solution: Setting up your paper management system. For the final week I will be discussing how to declutter your magazines. You know the type of magazines that creep up on you issue by issue and they trickle in one at a time from all different places such as the mailbox, the grocery store and before you know it you have different piles of magazines overflowing your kitchen counters, dinning room table and nightstand. So what do you do?
Recommended supplies: magazine clutter
Suggestions. So here are a few tips to help you tackle your stacks without sacrificing their contents, OR making you take hours to sift through piles of magazines.
Step 1 Gather all your magazines into one place. Scour your whole house. Search through every cabinet, drawer and counter surface. I know it might seem overwhelming once you have them all in one place, but this is a super important step. You need to know what you are dealing with. Don’t be scared!
Step 2 Sort! The quickest way to make that huge pile less scary and more manageable is to sort the magazines into categories by title. While you are sorting, immediately weed out any duplicates or issues that you know you have no interest in. This step should happen quick. Don’t spend a lot of time. Only look at the covers. No opening the magazines during this step.
Step 3 Depending on how many piles of magazines you have left, think about where you can store your stacks in the short term while you go through the piles. When I did this I found an empty corner of my house and just put the stacks on the floor. The 90 degree angle of the walls made for a nice barrier to keep the stacks from falling or sliding. Once you are ready to tackle a stack, keep these things in mind: Most everything in these magazines (and let’s face it, about life) is just one Google search away.
Step 4 With these bullet points in mind, now being able to speed read through your stacks is a lot more realistic approach. Set time aside in your week or month, pour a big cup of your favorite beverage, get comfy in your JPs and plow through a portion of your stockpile. Skim the cover for interesting teases, check the table of contents for must-read headlines, then just go straight to those pages. Rip them out and move to the next. At the end of a session you will be pleased to see that your stack of 12 inches or so is now a mere two.
Set yourself up for success by spending a few hours this fall creating your own paper management system. Your home should be a place where you can relax and recharge. Don’t let piles of paper keep you from enjoying the calm a clutter-free space can bring.