What to do with old Magazines and Newspapers
Introduction
Have old magazines and newspapers stacked away in your house? Of course, you do! You read that article 10 years ago and thought you would need to keep it for reference. What was this article again? Which issue of Country Life or the Guardian was it in? You most likely won’t remember and are not likely to locate it quickly, even if you know where your pile of old newspapers is stacked in your house. There are reasons libraries and archives do detailed cataloguing of their contents.
Below I will give suggestions as to what you can do to avoid cluttering up your flat with old newspapers and how to find the articles you want to keep.
What to do with old newspapers and magazines?
Firstly, do you need the whole newspaper or magazine, or will keeping just the article do? Think carefully before keeping endless copies of old magazines unless you are likely to read them repeatedly.
Before cutting out articles, look at whether the magazine or newspaper has a searchable online archive that allows for the retrieval of old articles. If it does, there is no need to keep the article.
There will, of course, be articles or pictures from magazines or newspapers that are worth keeping as you might want to refer to them in the future.
You have two options on how to store articles and find them again. First, scan the article and then name and date the digital file so that you can find it again. A proper name would be the article’s topic—for example, German election October 2021 or Ukraine War in 2022.
Don’t want to keep the article in an electronic format. Why not get a large binder with dividers and file the articles by topics? This way, articles can be easily retrieved.
Conclusion
The above tips should help you with not keeping endless old newspapers and be able to find the stuff that you do want to keep.
Want to learn more about decluttering? Check out other posts here.
trabantbettina
Bettina Anna Trabant, Founder of Life Organised, your professional organising and decluttering service in East London. Eco-conscious minimalist and avid tea drinker,