Operation Periodical Discipline. A campaign against the onslaught of magazines, newspapers, catalogs, and other paper tigers that can quickly overwhlem all other home organization achievements. Without Operation Periodical Discipline, you could lose sight of your coffee table, your bedside shelves, the top of your toilet tank...
Operation Periodical Discipline requires a multi-faceted plan of attack. The primary front plays out on the Internet: get as much of your info as you can online and cancel corresponding subscriptions.
The secondary front is interpersonal: enforce a household rule that if a publication is more than three months old, it must be given away or recycled, even if it's still unread (or even unflipped-through).
And if the enemy still broaches the line, you'll have to send in reinforcements: a nice magazine rack (or two, at most) with enough capacity for no more than three months of glossy softbound reading material. Limit what you will take in to to what your rack can hold.
We nominate this one, from Furni. It comes in veneered beech, dark or light, with a white, bent acrylic pocket and rubber feet, for $88. Furni is also selling their samples right now however, and these are a better deal, at $66 apiece.
Available here.
I don't wish to appear especially cheeky, but might I suggest a few other clutter-busting strategies for keeping those periodical elements off your table? Sometimes, it's handy to have archival material. Three strategies I've found useful:
-- Acrylic magazine caddies. I use these to keep all my back issues of Cook's Illustrated; the idea of throwing out any of those issues is anathema. You can also use the caddies to store magazines you keep later for inspiration or reference; a year's worth of Sunset fits into one caddy, and the whole thing slides right into place on a bookshelf. See The Container Store for these.
-- An accordion file folder. Sometimes, you want to look up a specific article, recipe or ad for later. Simply tear from the magazine or catalog and file by broad category. Winnow periodically. I use this for travel articles, New Yorker/Atlantic Monthly articles I like, decorating ideas.
-- A three-ring binder and page protectors. Invaluable if you're saving gardening, cooking or how-to articles. You're essentially creating a vade mecum that withstands spills and dirt.
Perhaps it's just that I'm passionate about magazines, but I think there's something to be said for judicious editing and curating a collection of well-presented information! Toss out the weekly rags and catalogs, but save what you suspect or know you'll need later.
Well said Lisa! Mainstream magazines are easy to look up in libraries, etc., but less widely read ones are not. Filing the relevant pages sounds like the best way if you may need an article later for work or personal research.