The junk drawer is like a permanent waystation in the home: an in-between place where things go to wait until they're thrown out or recycled. To keep an organized junk drawer, get rid of the junk. It sounds simple, but it's not always easy to practice. For a few helpful tips, click below...
- To organize your junk drawer, dump everything onto a surface so you can see it.
- Clean out the inside of your drawer.
- Throw out or recycle anything you don't use. Be ruthless; you don't need to hang onto that empty matchbook just because it's pretty.
- Move anything that belongs in another place to its proper home. For example, file those receipts that you stashed in the junk drawer or move those extra screws to your toolbox.
- Organize items. Group like items together and use a drawer organizer or a set of small containers to hold each set of items. (Simple household things like ice cube trays can make great organizers in a pinch.)
- To keep your junk drawer organized, get rid of small items you don't need or use on a regular basis. Don't give junk a place to live in your home.
- If you're a packrat and you just can't help but have a junk drawer, remember to weed it every couple of months so it doesn't get out of control.
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how organized your drawers are = how organized your money is.
chaos in the house = chaos in your life.
sometimes cleaning your house will "magically" influence your life to become organized as well.
ah yes.
had organized junk drawers until babe number 2 became a toddler -- he opens them and dumps everything, or runs away with it. sometimes there ARE extenuating circumstances.
Love the white calculator!
nickel525, I agree with you, except about the money.
My husband takes care of our finances...and he keeps track of everything down to the penny. Our house (and drawers), on the other hand, could use a lot of help. :/
Junk drawers aren't supposed to be organized. That's the beauty of it. You keep your whole house in perfect condition, but there's this one little place to throw all the things that fit nowhere else.
If, as a toddler, I had emptied out the junk drawer ONCE, it would have been my last act on earth.
I love it when parents sound powerless in the face of toddlers...
i'm a rather messy person, but my junk drawer is immaculate. It's the only way I can find something - it makes me happy every time I open it. I keep bag clips in a small rubbermaid container, other items in a utensil holder, manuals in a small stack, batteries in a small cookie tin, etc. My favorite thing to do is use a small container for something and then flip over its lid to use as another holder. It works great - didn't have to buy a thing!
Patrick -- with kids you learn not to sweat the small stuff. And an organized junk drawer is truly anal when you have other priorities.
(and threatening a 2 year old with physical abuse -- which you are suggesting with the "last act on earth" comment, well....)
Oh, relax. Of course it wouldn't have been my last act on earth, nor would I have been in any actual physical harm.
The one short pencil brings out the OCD in me.
However, the realist in me thinks if you obsess this much over your junk drawer, you probably need to see the outdoors more often.
I have all the organizational accutrements in my junk door however that is not enough to keep it permanantly organized.
Every 3 months or so, I wrangle in the madness and in 15 minutes, voila it looks similar to the photo above.
Patrick(the other one) I won't go into details, but my grandfather would say something similar to me and to this day, he is not only my favorite person ever but the saying is one of my fondest memories. :)
So the thing about the pretty matchbook: DON'T THROW IT AWAY! Start an inspiration journal and glue it in. Even if you are not an artist or a designer, having a book of beautiful things can really make you happy!
Nickel, it's just a drawer.
How magical your thinking is = how vulnerable your brain is
"how organized your drawers are = how organized your money is."
This is absurd. Most of my drawers are well-organized, but not all. My finances are very well-organized, thank you. What compels people to draw links between things like organization and other aspects of life or character? It's like the people who believe Mac users are smarter or more stylish than PC users (and I'm a Mac user so I'm not speaking as a defensive PC user).
The pictured drawer is not a junk drawer. It's office supplies.
My "junk" is in a basket stored out of sight in storage under my sofa. The items are grouped in plastic Ziploc bags. This seems to work fine from a utilitarian viewpoint, but it probably isn't pretty enough for some folks.
This completely goes against the principle of the junk drawer. I would never do it.
The junk drawer is mental space. There are a few things I always keep in my junk drawer. I might have to dig for them but I know they are there (the analog phone for power outages when the cell phone isn't charged), crayons, odd but occasionally useful items like candle trimmers. If I tried to organize mine these things would wind up somewhere that made sense organizationally but which I would promptly forget.
I'm leaving mine messy, thanks.
that's not a junk drawer, that's a desk drawer. what's all your desk stuff doing in a junk drawer?