Often when we read the newspaper or magazine, we may come across some interesting, thought provoking or memorable articles that we wish to keep for reading later. How could we preserve and store these articles?
My older organization methods of newspaper articles:
I grew up reading newspaper as we had the papers delivered to our home daily (but we stopped not long after I came out to work). The internet was not as it is today and the papers do not have comprehensive online version of their articles.
During that time, my organization method is quite chaotic. When I read the day’s paper, it is obvious I could not cut out the article that day as my family members would be reading the paper. By the next day, I would either forget, had no time or just plain lazy to work on it.
Usually, I would end up gathering a pile of the papers (sometimes up to a few months’ worth) and then systematically look through them again and physically cut out articles that I wish to store. These articles are pasted on prospectus books that we tend to get in the mail often.
The habit is not only time consuming, but can be draining and tiring at times. I came out with a couple of such books loaded with pasted articles. Also, it increases the clutter in my home as I would not get rid of the papers without first checking through them.
What happened to those books?
They sat in a corner- I find myself hardly opening them.
Then one year during a decluttering session, I threw out all these books. The papers were yellow and old, dusty and does not give out a good vibe. At first I hesitated but I closed my eye and put in the plastic bag together with other papers that I am giving to an old lady who makes her living collecting recycle items near my home.
I never miss those books and happy to get rid of files that ‘does not spark joy’ as stated in the Kon Mari book.
Second idea
About 8 years ago, I came out with an idea – to start a blog site to store the article listing and then link to the sites that contain them. This literally eliminate the physical clutter.
But the site that I started to document the articles, http://resource-ideas.blogspot.my/ has been long dormant. For this idea to work, you have to have the discipline to login to make amendments. Also, I noticed that after sometime the paper portals may migrate the archives to a different url so it may cause the link not to work. It is hard to find without the exact title name and author.
Current system I use to organize articles that I wish to read later
1. When I come across an article that I wish to read, I immediately snap a photo of the article using my phone camera.
Note: It is not necessary to capture the entire article but the name and author would be necessary to be able to perform a search of it later. However most articles for magazines are not available online, hence I would take a clear picture of the article or just the section of the article that I wish to read.
2. The newspaper or magazine can then be discarded or send for recycling anytime.
3. As a blogger, I also constantly take photos for my blogs and frequently transfer the photos from my phone to my laptop. The photos of the newspaper articles would be parked at a dedicated folder which I name it as “Newspaper clippings”.
4. From time to time, I would checkout the folder in my PC to read the articles.
Creating an index file
The search can be made quicker if you were to index each other either in a word document or in a notebook. The document/notebook need to contain the name of the article and the author, perhaps if you wish, a few key phrases of the articles.
This serves 3 purposes:
- The index can be based on the date, as our photo files are sorted by dates.
- It also make online search of the article to be quicker and easier (for articles that are available online).
- The file can also be integrated in the same book or online folder where you list down your blog post ideas.
Other alternative suggestions- storing all in your camera:
1. Still take photos of articles that you wish to read later. As you would be reading from your camera, you need to ensure the super fine words could be read using your image viewer.
2. Create a folder in your Gallery and designate it for newspaper or article clippings.
3. The physical copy can be sent for recycling. You need not store an entire paper just for one or a few articles.
Conclusion:
Each one of us would have different preference when it comes to organizing newspaper articles. The above are some of the methods I have tried from the time I was young until now.
Hopefully it can give you some useful ideas on trying and figuring out an effective organization system for your newspaper articles.
