YOUR Happiness Project: Throw away some magazines.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you should have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

When I hear people talking about feeling overwhelmed, two tasks come up over and over: clearing out email and reading back issues of magazines.

Let’s focus on the magazines.

If you feel guilty and overwhelmed because you have a huge stack of unread magazines cluttering your living room or engulfing your bedside table -- get rid of them! Put them in the recycling bin right now!

Sometimes it’s not realistic to think that you’re going to “catch up.” When are you going to feel like reading thirty issues of the New Yorker?

Maybe, like the Big Man, you’re saving a stack of The New York Review of Books to read on an airplane. Maybe, like my mother, you’re saving a stack of Architectural Digest to use as inspiration. Or maybe you have to read a certain magazine for work, or you take a positive joy in your collection. Fine.

But if you’re feeling guilty about a big stack of magazines that you read “for fun,” get rid of them. Start fresh. You’re supposed to be reading them for enjoyment, and if you’re feeling defeated by the backlog, you're not enjoying yourself. Sure, you may miss some interesting material, but the sense of oppression just isn’t worth it.

Because we subscribe to so many magazines (25 different magazines, at last count, and three newspapers), I have a strict periodicals policy. We never keep a newspaper overnight, and we never keep a magazine for more than two months, for a monthly, or two weeks, for a weekly.

On a related note, consider storing current magazines out of sight. I keep ours in a dedicated drawer. Most people display magazines on coffee tables or in special magazine racks, but I’ve never understood this. Magazines make a room look cluttered. I keep ours hidden.

I devised a trick that helps us keep our magazines in check: the ripped cover. Because the Big Man and I read many of the same magazines, I hesitated to throw them away after I’d read them, because I didn’t know if he’d read them. Now, when one of us has read an issue, we rip the bottom of the front cover in half. That way, each of us knows if the other is done with it. It has an added benefit: sometimes I’d grab a magazine for the gym or the subway, only to realize too late that I’d already read it. Now, if it’s ripped, I know to check to make sure I haven’t read it before.

One of my Twelve Commandments is “Let it go.” Recognizing when it’s time to let go of a goal or a task is hard for me to do, but always worth thinking about.

Have you found any other simple ways to cure yourself of feeling overwhelmed?

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Comments

[Suzanne Carter]

the magazine trick is a great one ...
I, too, subscribe to a bunch - and developed my own little tricks ...

e.g. the stated purpose for the subscription is to NOT read, but to rip.

Each mag gets leafed through upon receipt (seems to be the natural thing I gravitate toward doing) ... and I rip out any images or articles or headlines that catch my eye.

If three or more things per magazine are ripped out per month, then yay, that mag is worth the subscription.

If the rips per month drop below 3/month, and the drop sustains for 3 months? Then so is the subscription - dropped, I mean.

Btw, the ripped-out images and headlines are deployed in building those collage thingys that some people use to try to manifest their desires ... i think in the "Secret" parlance they're called vision boards?

I use collages to get a handle on what i really like and don't like about a particular thing ... especially interior design stuff.

Right now, in fact there's one hanging on the kitchen wall, about 8 feet by 6 feet, displaying the kinds of design elements and furniture that fit my hub's and my idea of a comfortable, inviting house.

... Okay ... mostly the collage is posted in an effort to hide the gawdawful 70s antiqued fruit wall paper --

but it's also for our brains to absorb ... so it's easier to make decisions about what to bring into the house and what to leave on the side of the road/at the tag sale/at the showroom.

Thanks, Gretchen for a thought-provoking post!

LOL - certainly made me a notch more happy on this fine morning!

[Jackie]

25 magazines! Won't you please tell us more about which those are? I think we only subscribe to five or so, but I'd love to do more.

I like Suzanne's ideas too-- I keep a binder with plastic sleeves for magazine articles I rip out, to avoid keeping whole issues, especially for recipe and household ideas. I know I have at least one box full of back issues of progressive/feminist magazines, which I can't imagine just recycling but should probably donate somewhere instead.

[MJ]

Huge 2nd on this. As much as I love my books and magazines I always find a lot of satisfaction in donating, selling, recycling, whatever the appropriate "out of the house" action might be. I keep a paper shopping bag in the kitchen next to the trash that is the dedicated recycling bag for the week - each day's WSJ goes in as soon as it is read along with the magazines that are ready to go. I add the junk mail flyers and catalogs (not the confidential information stuff - that goes to the shredder) and take it all out on Saturday afternoon.

Too much stuff is oppressive in general.

That said, I am very imperfect - while we can cycle through the WSJ, New Yorker, Newsweek, Harpers, Atlantic in some semblance of speed, I have a huge and growing pile of literary journals that I continue to hope I will find huge blocks of time to absorb. Probably better to just pass these along to like minded friends at this point.

[Suzyn]

My mom and I share a subscription to the New Yorker. When we've finished an issue, we put our initial on the back cover. That way, when we finish, we know whether to pass it back, or toss it out. Maybe you and the Big Man could rip different places, so you'll know which of you is finished with it.

Recently, in an attempt to de-clutter my inbox, I've been ruthlessly un-subscribing from email newsletters. I don't miss a single one.

[so-called "Austin Mayor"]

May I suggest that rather than just pitching your magazines into the recycling bin, you could put them in a bag and dump them at a coffee shop or public transportation stop.

Of course Newsweek, Time, People, US and TimeOut go right into the hopper, but I'd imagine that some other folks might find some enjoyment or even elightenment from your discarded Harpers, Atlantic, New Yorker, Smithsonian or NY Review of Books.

I was introduced to the NY Review and Smithsonian by encountering them serendipitously, so my passing them along is karma kultivation.

-- SCAM
so-called "Austin Mayor"
http://austinmayor.blogspot.com

[adora]

I keep my magazine in a cute leather gift hamper from the Body Shop. They are very cheap after Christmas (about $7-10). It holds about 12-15 magazines and it's got a handle that allows you to easily carry it from room to room. When it is full, it's time to throw the old ones out. I also keep a pair of scissors, file folder & pens in the hamper for taking notes.

My friend likes to read magazines on the toilet. His wife do not allow contaminated magazines back to the living room, they also rip the cover as marking.

[Louise]

I found my happiness decreases drastically when I read magazines specifically targeted at women. The message is always that we are not thin, beautiful, fashionable or accomplished enough. Most articles are about things to buy to make us conform to some arbitrary standard.

They make me feel icky and inadequate. So I stopped cold turkey years ago. Best thing I ever did.

Now I read all my magazines online, and limit myself to news, science, and general interest ones such as the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and Wired. No clutter, no need to flip through advertisements or keep track of whether hubby has read it.

Part of my Happiness Project mantra is "No paper magazines!"

[Alli]

Another alternative to recycling the papers would be to donate them to a school or nursing home.

[Elissa]

I like the ideas about sharing subscriptions and keeping magazines for only a certain length of time. I have also unsubscribed to many paper magazines/newspapers; so much is available online now.

My girlfriend runs an ER; so I have learned to pass all my magazines on to her. If you have ever spent hours in an ER with reading material, then you know the true appreciation for good magazines.

[crannin]

there are 3 places to read magazines: in bed, in the subway, in the toilet

i have a place for magazines in my bedside table, and a rack by the shoe rack and a rack in the bathroom.

everytime i get my magazines, i sort them by which ones are for bathroom reading, bedside reading or commute reading.

commute: businessweek, economist, wired - all magazines that keep my brain cells buzzing and also distracts me from obsessing about work worries or stress from a bad day. reminders that, hey, there are other things happening in the world!
toilet: real simple, GQ, harpers, health mags - short, interesting read that may be related to health, cleaninless, interior decorating, etc
bedside: gq, vogue, - light reading types that smell good and you can drift to bed with...

and all of that goes into a recyling bin the moment we are done w/ them...each time i get a new issue, i toss the old

[Ann]

I have stopped subscribing to so many magazines. Once my daughter was born, I just didn't have the time or the patience to wade through them all.

That being said, I did somehow accumulate a huge stack of reading material over the last few months, and you know what I did? I tossed the whole basket full - without even looking! I have yet to miss anything in that pile.

Same with my email - which I posted about recently. I just trashed almost 200 emails I knew I'd never read or act on.

[Ann at One Bag Nation]

PS that stack of magazines makes me hyperventilate - that was ME a few years ago!!

[Salar Madadi]

Great idea Gretchen. I have a lot of old magazines randomly littering my bookshelves and now that I think about it, I rarely go back and read any of them as I tend to read and re-read them over the week after I get them.

I will definitely go through and clean them out this weekend. I'll see if my local thrift store accepts them.

[Mrs. Micah]

I remember how guilty I used to feel about not reading magazines. Now I don't subscribe. And if I own a book I haven't read, tough cookies for the book. Maybe I'll read it, maybe I won't.

[Sorry, lame]

I hope I'm not being rude. My friends sometimes tell me that I'm too forthright, which I suspect is code for "rude."

Clearing out magazines--sure, fine.

But HAPPINESS? Clearing out magazines is going to make you HAPPY?

How about learning a little bit about yourself, learning new tools to take the finger off the trigger of OUCH experiences?

[Natasha]

I love this idea for getting rid of magazines. But instead of throwing them in the trash, why not give them to a thrift store like the Salvation Army? That way you're giving away to a charity that can really benefit from your clutter.

[jenistarfish]

I had NO idea that people ripped magazine covers in this way! The good little girl in me is screaming that this is defacing a BOOK and ALL books are SACRED! I now know why my home is so cluttered with yellowing trashy holiday reading and yes, of course, magazines going back 15 years...;)

Strangely, I have long come to turns with cutting out pictures or articles - that seems so much more reverent and creative somehow - and besides that Law of Attraction thing really works!

Gretchen, you have liberated me from the last vestiges of my rules based creed! From now on I will RIP! and THROW! (or GIVE AWAY! as one reader suggested - but I do wish that had the same dramatic sound in CAPS! ...)

[jan]

I'm so paranoid that I cut and pasted this article into My Documents to save to read later (just like that pile(s) of magazines I see over there in the corner.

[Michael Ramey]

That doesn't work for us. Debra will tear it, then two days later throw it. So she tears the top, I tear the bottom.

MJRamey

[STL Mom]

The key for me is to get fewer magazines. With only a few subscriptions, my husband and I read them in a couple of days and then they can be dropped off at the YMCA when I work out. I no longer get cooking magazines, and I subscribe to the Cook's Illustrated website instead.
The one kind of magazine I could NOT get rid of was my home decorating magazines - because I really did enjoy looking at them over and over again. Finally, I put an ad on Craigslist, offering them free to anyone who would pick them up. I think I had a dozen responses in one day. This made me feel much better about getting rid of them - and I wasn't tempted to pull them out of the recycling bin before pickup.

[Anne D. Marshall]

Magazines have been my drug of choice for as long as I can remember. I'm a R&R-er but even after pulling out all the pages, sometimes I keep the carcass!(One last hit...what did I miss?) It is hell to part with them but I love your line: "When are you going to feel like reading thirty issues of the New Yorker", or Veranda, or Wallpaper, or, or, or......Now I have to file all the articles, ideas and websites
I ripped out. It is endless.

[Allysson]

I recently came across a request on freecycle.com from a teacher for magazines with pictures of animals for her 1st grade class. I happily donated my collection of My Big Backyard knowing they'd be put to good use. In future I would post these kinds of magazines on Freecycle or donate them to a local school.

[The 'Stute Fish]

I have one magazine subscription and I STILL get behind. But I do read them. Eventually. And I'm never sorry I did. So I keep them. There's a magazine rack in each bathroom, and once every month or so I'll cycle them out. I also keep all the covers and make homemade envelopes out of them - it gives me something to do while I watch TV, on the rare occasions that I watch TV!

...it almost seems like happiness would be better served by subscribing to less magazines (25?! REALLY?!) than by tossing them unread. I guess it depends on how OFTEN you have to toss unread ones.

[catherine]

I recently started to recycle my old magazines - but not before hauling them cross-town when I moved from the Upper East Side to West Harlem. (!)I also tear out articles, images, recipes and whatnot to save for later, though I rarely look for them again. My to-read pile is currently about 4 inches deep but I can't bring myself to toss; I figure I'll read that February issue of Gourmet some day. In the last few months, I've finally stopped kicking myself for not reading every single article in every single New Yorker. I'm learning that it's ok to not read another depressing expose on Iraq or a review of a movie I won't see.

Discussing reading always makes me want to dive into my pile!