Give the drawer a job

9/28/09 Drawer full of random stuff, recycled, trashed, or moved elsewhere

The lines between downsizing and organizing are blurry. As I travel along this journey, I realize that the need to get rid of excess clutter is interwoven with the need to organize those things that need to stay around. In the process of getting rid of things, I am also putting other things in order.

This junk drawer in our kitchen is a perfect example. For six years, it has served no clear purpose, other than housing random stuff we don't want to bother putting anywhere else. We didn't have any reason to save much of the stuff (I stopped counting all the random papers I recycled and the junk I tossed into the trash), and the things that we wanted to save didn't belong in there.

As I tackled this drawer, I realized our fatal misstep. For six years, we've looked at the stuff in it and asked ourselves, "Where should this go? Where do we put this? Should we save this?"

When we didn't have an answer, we tossed it into the drawer.

Tonight, I had an epiphany. Rather than ask questions about the stuff in the drawer, we need to tell the drawer what its job is. My theory is that once the drawer has a purpose, we'll stop putting random stuff into it.

It took about a minute to give the drawer a new identify. Goodbye, Junk Drawer. Hello, Tea Drawer.

Joanna, true to her British roots, loves tea. We used to have it in a number of random places around the kitchen. Now, we've got it organized and in one place. As an added bonus, one of the small drawers that used to house some of the tea now can store the vitamins that used to clutter the windowsill over the sink.

An hour ago, we had a junk drawer, a tea drawer that only held half of our tea, and a window sill cluttered with vitamins. Now, we have a clean windowsill, a specific place for all our vitamins, and another spot for all the tea.

In the process, a bunch of stuff we shouldn't have been saving got trashed or recycled. That was a bonus. But, the items that were downsized were just a small part of the story.

The bigger benefit is that a little bit of downsizing can lead to a whole lot of organizing. And I love it when things get organized.