So time for me to confess: I have two conflicting personality traits. One: I definitely have a type A personality--I like thing done in a certain way, in a certain amount of time, and with a certain amount of attention to detail. My only problem is I'm lazy. Crazy thing to admit, but it's true. I have an insane drive to do all these things, but nine times out of ten I simply just give up for various reasons.

When we moved to Kuwait, I vowed that things were going to be different. I wanted to be organized and on top of things. However, after six months of living here I can tell you that I got lazy about not being lazy. Literally every drawer, closet, and open available space in my house has things CRAMMED into. 

This morning I was almost pulling out my hair out when I saw how bad our "junk" drawer had gotten. It was so cluttered! I think I was using it more as a trash-limbo-land rather than an organized drawer of pens and various knick-knacks that I need around the house. Me being me though, when I get annoyed  with something like that, I just focus all my energy and obsess about it until it's done. So today I decided to clean that sucker out and type A that mother. 

In the middle of it, I thought it would be helpful if I gave out some tips to you guys if you want to clean out your unorganized mess and not go crazy in the process. So here you go:

  • Pull everything out. Do yourself a favor and take EVERYTHING out of the drawer(s). It will seem crazy at first to have that big pile of junk sitting there staring at you, but there's two reasons you should do this. One: Once you've pulled all that junk out, it'll all have to go back in. It'll force you to put it away in a proper place. Two: Junk drawers are dirty. You'll be surprised what kind of stuff you'll find in there. No joke, I found cereal, a chuck e cheese coin, and every receipt ever given to me in there. Wipe the whole drawer out and start fresh. 
  • Don't go out and buy a fancy organizer. There's no need to buy a fancy drawer organizer unless you absolutely feel the need for one. I used a silverware holder (cost me $2 at the store), some old tupperware, and a pencil case to organize my stuff. Just use stuff around the house or buy something cheap at the dollar store, no need to be fancy. Serious organizers just want all their stuff to have a home, who cares about whether the organizer is black or pink. **Extra tip** All of my tupperware and organizers are 3M taped to the drawer. This way when I open and close the drawer everything doesn't roll around and get disorganized again. 
  • Group like things together. Sounds silly, but it works. You're ten times more likely to put something back where it belongs if you know exactly where it goes. Since most junk drawers are filled with odds and ends, it's easier to visually know where to put things if they're all grouped together. Example: all adapters and cords go together. Pens and pencils are together. 
  • Make a pile for trash, shred, keep, and an "I don't know" pile. I know you're saying "duh" right now, but just do it. At the end it'll be easier to sort through the random "I don't know" papers when they're the only ones you're dealing with. Most of the time, my "I don't know" papers are things like User Manuals and Warranty paperwork. Today I decided to just throw all that in a binder and store it on a shelf in my laundry room.

Excuse the ugly lighting on this picture. It's late and I'm too tired to fix the awful coloring in this photo. 
For the user manual binder, I decided to put each manual in its own page protector. Then I typed up a title page and BAM instant "User Manual" binder. Fancy, fancy. 



If you want to download this title page for your own User Manual binder, feel free to download it here. 

All in all, my organization rampage only took me 40 minutes. And now my type A side is pleased because my drawer is pretty now and the lazy side of me is happy because I did all of this while watching the new episode of Glee.  


2 Comments

  1. Oh my god I desperately need to do this! haha. It's driving my husby crazy, and I can never find anything when I need it. Thanks for the inspiration!

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    1. Hey Karen. It makes me so happy to hear that I inspired you. :) I'm going to be honest...I'm so guilty of throwing everything in a drawer that I need to inspire myself to clean out the 10 other drawers in house that look just like this. haha Thanks for stopping by my blog and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

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