31 Days To Minimalist Living Day 2

I am writing every day in October--taking on the challenge set forth by The Nester for bloggers to write a "31 Days to..." blog series. I'm tackling Minimalist Living and you can click here to read Day 1's post. 

Today we take on paper. Now to keep this simple, I'm not going to say, "today we try to organize and toss the past 10 years worth of mail that has piled up."  No no no. That's WAAAAY too huge (well, for me, anyway!)

I'm talking about paper clutter that is more fun than bills--it's magazines and catalogs. They have a way of reproducing when you're not looking!!! The key here is container size. If you have a large box or bin or basket for your magazines & such, you'll end up with more in there. Limit the size of the container to only be able to hold a FEW and then be diligent about cleaning it out.

(note---cancel the catalogs if you don't read them. This can easily be done online. Magazines require a little more work to cancel, so I just give them to people & let the subscription run out. Because I'm lazy that way.)

Here's some dirty truth for you all:

Yep. That's a lot of things crammed in there & a prime example of what happens when you establish container size but don't do anything about sorting! I have used this basket for magazines & catalogs for YEARS and when I don't stay on top of things, it starts to look B-A-D. Pretty much I haven't touched this mess is 3 or 4 months and have just been shoving things in there figuring I'd get to it later. NOW is later.

The first thing I did was pull everything out and start sorting it.

and yes, that is my tankard of coffee AND a remote control. I watched a DVD of "Castle-Season 1" while sorting .

I made a pile of all the magazines I've read.  I will be giving these to a gardening friend.

Why yes, I do read a lot of gardening mags...what of it?!

I also pulled out all the expired seed catalogs. I read seed catalogs like children used to read the Sears Christmas catalog. I highlight things and mark things and post-it note it like crazy!!! But then they send me NEW catalogs and I start all over again. Old catalogs are OUT.

This is a pile of out of date seed catalogs, mailings from our city, IKEA catalogs, etc. These will go in our recycling bin:

This is a pile of home magazines (I get all of these for FREE!). I usually see if the art teacher needs them or I take them to a Scout meeting & people pick them up or I leave 'em at the Dr's office. :

And now--the "after":