We all have one, that scary drawer which has become a dumping ground. This blog post will help you to tackle this drawer, and any other messy cupboards/drawers in an organised way.
You can declutter and organise as much as you want, but there always seems to be one space that defies tidying. It gathers items that don’t seem to fit elsewhere, more and more items get put in it and you tend to open and close it quickly, pushing items down so it can shut.
I would suggest going with a divide and conquer method for an area such as this. But make it fun, put some music on, have some snacks and a drink to hand. Lots lof light and fresh air helps too.
DIVIDE & CONQUER
Tip the drawer out on a flat surface, go-on, just tip it out. Put the drawer aside to be cleaned and re-packed later. Start putting like items together in piles. I expect you will have things like:
Spare keys
Cables/plugs
Receipts/paperwork
Household items such as screws, alan-keys, radiator keys, etc
Other objects
Keep going until everything is in a pile, even if it is unique. Then move the piles into groups. Put all household items together, paperwork together Tech items, etc.
Once you have your piles, go through them carefully, be brave and throw away anything that you can’t identify - check keys and cables, get rid of those that are no longer used. Get rid of receipts that are more than a month old, (apart from warrranties or items you may return). File those with the rest of your paperwork. Find your other home-maintenance items, and put odd screws and other items with them. If you don’t have a kit, find a box and put them in together.
Slowly reduce the stuff you have until you have only useful items that don’t belong elsewhere left. Find some small boxes or dividers to break up your drawer and ‘file’ these items together in these boxes. Label up these boxes so you can see what is in each one.
This way you will have a neatly divided drawer, with spaces for any other items brought in to be ‘filed’. Do a four times a year audit of this drawer to make sure that nothing old or unusable has snuck back in.