I Tried the “Out-in-the-Open” Rule and Decluttered My Kitchen Drawer in 45 Minutes

At first glance, my home can seem pretty organized — at least most of the time. But as soon as you start opening closet doors or drawers, the secret’s out. I love to hide my clutter. It’s so easy to toss something behind closed doors and forget about it. It’s quite literally out of sight, out of mind — how convenient! But in the spirit of spring cleaning, I’ve been inspired to tackle some organization projects that have been staying hidden, thanks to a rule coined by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus of The Minimalists called the “out in the open” rule that I learned about in this article on Apartment Therapy. 

The idea of this organization tool is to bring all of your hidden clutter “out in the open.” Once you can actually see your clutter that’s been hiding, it’s much easier to sift and sort through your items. For example, if you’re organizing a dresser drawer, the “out in the open” rule would mean you’d take everything out of the drawer to sort through. It’s a great way to see all the things you end up using on the regular, and what you don’t. 

I decided to implement this rule and declutter my kitchen utensil drawer. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to cook more, but it hasn’t quite stuck yet. After some reflection, I realize it’s because my kitchen is simply not a place I want to be in. A renter-friendly makeover is long overdue, but more importantly the space is in need of a deep declutter. The drawers are packed to the brim and not super organized, and because my husband and I reach for eating utensils every day this seemed like the perfect place to start. 

The first and only rule is to take everything out of the space you’re organizing, so that’s exactly what I did. I hate to admit that it had been quite a while since the utensil drawer had been empty, and it was in desperate need of a wipe-down. I took all of the utensils to my kitchen table to lay everything out, then went back to the kitchen to clean out the drawer. I also cleaned the utensil organizer. This wasn’t necessarily part of the rule, but it felt necessary before I started my declutter! 

Everything was in a pile on top of my table, so my next step was to organize everything into categories. There were a few items I definitely didn’t remember being hidden away, but I was actually surprised to see that there weren’t as many items as I’d imagined. They made the drawer feel overwhelming, simply because the drawer isn’t quite big enough for everything. But seeing everything out in the open didn’t overwhelm me — it was the opposite, in fact. I was relieved there wasn’t as much stuff as I thought there would be.  

As I started to organize, I soon realized some items could be stored elsewhere — serving utensils can stay in my cabinet with other hosting supplies, the to-go silverware can stay where the lunch boxes are kept, and the shaker ball whisks can stay with the protein shaker cups they belong to. Before I knew it, I was able to put my essentials back into the drawer, no problem. The whole project took about 45 minutes; not too bad for a drawer I thought would take longer!

Just thinking about this rule made it seem like putting items out in the open would feel formidable. I’m sure that could potentially be the case for other parts of my home, but I was actually encouraged when I saw all of my kitchen drawer items laid out on my table. Items simply needed to be moved around or discarded. Once I only had the essentials, reorganizing the drawer was a breeze. What a relief! As spring cleaning commences, I highly recommend trying the “out in the open” rule.