I’m a big believer in getting to the point when it comes to magazines. It seems like half the content these days are ads. I tackle my magazines when I have a few minutes here or there to give them a quick skim.
Magazines provide me with my paper dose of visual inspiration. While I get most of my organizing ideas from personal experience, reading and the internet, there are a few magazines I love to thumb through looking for the latest and greatest ideas. When I come across an idea or picture I want to save for later reference I tear out the page and file it away. Of course the ideas I feel are blog worthy I share with you all here!
In the past I set up a filing system for the magazine pages. I had categories set up much like the categories I use on this blog. After time I had a little problem though. Have you heard “out of sight, out of mind”? Yep, that’s me. I pretty much have to have everything out in the open or I forget about it. A traditional filing system just doesn’t work for me that well.
After trying the filing method I finally got fed up and tried something new for my magazine pages. I wanted to try a three ring binder but the magazine pages would rip out too easily. I decided to give the Circa Notebook by Levenger a try. I used A-Z dividers in the notebook and stored each category under the corresponding letter. So under B I had bathroom ideas, bedroom ideas, etc. This method worked great and I was able to keep the notebook right on my desk to reference when I needed it. I could easily take out a page and scan it when I needed to and my system was essentially self purging because when I scanned a page to blog about it I could then throw out the magazine page.
Although my new notebook was working wonders, my ultimate goal for my office is to go Paper Less. I really wanted to scan in all of my documents but it was a time consuming task. So I decided to take the digital plunge. I contacted iPreserve to inquire about their services. I could send them my precious glossy pages and they would scan them and send them back to me on a disk.
And it was that easy. I purged the files I no longer wanted then I stacked them in order and shipped them off. And poof, like that they were gone. I got the pages back along with a CD. I tossed the pages and reveled at the feeling of letting go of the pile. Now I can do a quick search on my computer for the page I wanted and it pops up on my screen. Fabulous!
Now that I have the backlog scanned I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me. Now that I have a faster scanner I will be able to maintain this system with little effort!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I have a scanner and program called Neat Receipts by Neatco that is supposed to scan and file articles. I haven’t tried it yet for articles or recipes,but it looks promising. The program also scans business cards and receipts, which I’ve used. The program recognizes words and categorizes for you; you can categorize too. I think it is wonderful.
Hi Tanna! Thank you for your tips! I have a similar magazine idea book and it is getting out of control a digital version would be great! Would you mind sharing how much it cost for how much to be scanned?
Thanks for the organizational inspiration!
Kendall
I just love these solutions. I always have stacks of magazines that contain a few articles I want to read or reference later. What a wonderful idea to organize them like I do recipes, in sheet protector pockets organized in a binder! Thanks for the tip!
Abbie
{ 2 trackbacks }