I love to read and I probably enjoy reading magazines the most. I like the fact that magazines are current and a new issue arrives in the mailbox on a regular basis.
I subscribe to many magazines, most related to design.
But here’s the problem…those magazines – with all their useful articles and tutorials – begin to pile up. That has created a problem in my studio: I’m running out of space.
So I took drastic action and started tearing out the useful information and throwing away the rest. As a kid, I used to collect comic books for pleasure and investing. For the investing side, one little nick in a comic book and the value goes down. The obsessive behvior of keeping the comics in “mint condition” now applies itself to books and magazines I own.
I’m not kidding…you could take just about any book off my bookshelf, even if I’ve had it for a decade or more, and still sell it as new because it still looks perfect even after having been read.
Now you can understand the trauma when I considered ripping pages out of magazines.
But, I had to face facts. First, the likelihood of me finding a specific article or tutorial was remote. I simply had too many magazines. Second, there’s the space issue I already mentioned. Third, do I really need old reviews of software I already own or don’t care about? Do I really need the editorial column from a magazine that’s three years old? Do I really need all the ads for stuff that either doesn’t exist anymore or is in a new version? No.
This is what I did and it may help you.
I have a small file cabinet that had an empty drawer. I bought some hanging file folders and started labeling them with things like Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Photography, Fonts, etc.
I started going through my magazines and ripping out everything that might be useful, mainly tutorials or articles that I might want to review later. I took those pages and stuck them in the appropriate folder, then threw away the rest of the magazine.
Now, if I want to work on my Photoshop skills for example, I simply pull out that file folder instead of going through stacks of old magazines.
At some point, if I have time, I could even scan those articles to have digital copies. But one step at a time, right?
Doing this has cleared the clutter and made me for more efficient when I’m looking for something that I know was in some magazine. If magazines are taking over your workspace, this idea is something to consider.
By the way, a big thank you to those who have already bought my first book, I Still Can’t Draw Stick Figures. There’s a tremendous sense of satisfaction not only in completing the project, but in having a project that helps other people. If you think you have a book in you, please pursue it.
