Organizing the Junk Drawer

It’s been about 10 days since I’ve focused on making a new habit (otherwise known in my home as my current obsession). I’m happy to report that my kitchen island has been the neatest it’s ever been. I’ve pretty much kept the clutter at a minimum, and no longer have piles of papers that need to be filed someday. Yay, me!

A nice side effect of this obsession was that it spawned an urge to organize the surrounding spaces. The island has two drawers, one of which I’ve organized a long time ago, thus:

We’ve outgrown this system, and, before I re-organized it, it was pretty much just a collection of all sorts of things. The reasons this didn’t work for us were:

1. There weren’t enough compartments to hold the little things like spare bulbs and rubber bands. They all just came together in one of the containers.

2. The containers were too deep, and looking for small items involved too much time digging into the spaces.

3. The containers were black, which made it difficult to see exactly what’s inside.

To re-organize, I used a Junk Drawer Organizer by Made Smart. The top portion slides to the side to give access to the other half of the bottom compartment. A cool thing about this organizer is that it comes with labeled and illustrated stickers, which are great for figuring out where to put the various items. I don’t have a photo of the messy drawer, but here’s how it looks now:

I also organized the other drawer, using a different system. This drawer didn’t have as many small items as the other, so I used a set of interlocking bins in various sizes. I forgot the name of the company that makes these, but here’s what the drawer looks like:

I think this system will last longer than the previous one. It’s so much easier to maintain, and makes finding things a snap.

How do you organize your junk drawer?

Tags: organization, clutter control, junk drawer, organizing drawers, housekeeping, homemaking