Tips for Organizing Drawers

Who here has a junk drawer that needs organizing? 

Ok, all of the internet can put their hands down now. LOL  This article is all bout organizin’ your drawlz (aka organizing drawers).  My Arkansas and Louisiana Southern accents are coming out.  Not sure why but it’s fun to write like this.

Are you like me and get distracted while organizing?  Especially when it comes to organizing drawers?  The items are hidden away, unnoticed, and ignored.  No wonder we generally only care about sorting them out when the drawers are so crammed full of stuff they won’t shut.

Don’t be looking in my drawlz

Most drawers in my home were at the point of not being able to be opened in the beginning of this month(ok, fine, you caught me, they really have always been this way).  Recently, I joined Marie Kondo cult.  You know the Netflix show Tidying Up With Marie Kondo?  This has gotten me motivated to get rid of things that aren’t “sparking joy” in my life.  I’ve been thanking a lot of things lately and so far have gotten rid of about 8-9 garbage bags of stuff. (PS They never say, “You’re welcome!”)

Some of those things have been from drawers in my home – the bathroom drawer, the kitchen, and my desk area.

Here are tips for organizing drawers –

#1  You must open the drawer.   Ok, I know silly to say, but I hadn’t opened my desk drawer in over a month.  YEP.  I knew it was so cluttered and just looking in this drawer was overwhelming.  Ends up, there was a small grocery sack of stuff that either didn’t belong in the drawer or was trash.  It’s a shallow, regular sized desk drawer.  It was out of control.  Like a tweet I read the other day, it’s like two badgers drunk on whisky had gotten in there.

#2  Take everything out of the drawer.  Many times I have tried rearranging my bathroom drawer while leaving everything in it.  Two years later, it was still a mess.  Taking everything out was a good step to see what all I actually wanted to keep.  I did this for the plastic cup/tupperware drawer.  Here’s everything in the drawer that was making it hard to open at the time…

#3  Separate into like categories.  I had no idea how many lipsticks I owned until I did this.  There are 20+!  Also, while separating, it’s a good time to decide what you don’t want or need and sorted out some items for a donate pile.  Ends up I had a ton of nail files too and couldn’t ever find them because they were scattered or under things in thebathroom drawer.   In the kitchen cup drawer I had too much Tupperware and more lids than bowls! (Don’t we all???)

#4  Scrutinize all items.  Even after separating everything, I still found more items in these piles that I knew I didn’t want or would ever use.  Some of the lipsticks were almost identical in color but I had purchased because they were covered by so much junk in the drawer.   Organizing drawers can save money!

#5  Buy small bins to group like items together.  Ok, I was skeptical about this part of the process.  I’m a cheap skate, errr, fiscally frugal and didn’t want to spend any money on this.  Fortunately, I happened upon a bunch of these tray thingies in the clearance area at The Container Store(ahh ahhhhh, clouds parting and angels singing).  How I love that store.  If they had shower facilities and a cot, I would secretly move in.  

Right.  Back to the importance of bins… 

It is sooo much easier to find what I’m looking for because the bins not just physically separate items, but visually do too.  In the drawer with general hand tools in the kitchen, I was forever digging around for the can opener.  Sometimes, little people would put it back in the knife drawer even.  Now, I literally open the drawer and TAH DAH, just like magic there’s the can opener.   Ahhhh organizing drawers.

It’s the little things in life that can save sanity!

#6  Keep it up!  Now that the drawers are all organized and extra unnecessary stuff is gone, don’t bring it back!  The desk drawer had a giant space left after I got rid of all the junk.  When I cleaned this drawer up, I was thinking,  “Oh what do I need?  Should I move this or that to the big empty space?”  NO, NO, NO!   It’s ok to have an empty space.  You might actually have something relevant that fits with the items in this space.  If you don’t, don’t just add something to fill up a space. 

Turns out I did have something in the “office” category that needed a home… My laptop.  For the last 2+ years it’s been homeless.  Traveling from kitchen table, to nightstand, to couch, to laptop bag, and more.  Never having a place to rest its weary processor.  But now!  Now it has a place to sleep at night.

CONCLUSION

So far I’ve organized and KonMarie’d my kids’ toys, 1 bathroom drawer, 1 desk drawer, and 6 kitchen drawers.  They all took a little longer than I thought they would but worth every minute spent!  Junk that was just trash isn’t cluttering my home.  Items that weren’t being used are now donated and being enjoyed by other people.  Try organizing your drawers!  You might like it.  And if not, at least they may be a little less cluttered and easier to open.  I hope these tips have been helpful.  Your house, and maybe even your laptop, will thank you.

Do you have any organizing tips for drawers?  Comment below!