For a while, I was trying to tackle at least a little organizing project each weekend around the house. The idea was that eventually, everything would be super organized. Lately, as in the last 3 years or so, that hasn’t really happened.

Organizing things always makes me feel accomplished. And a 15 minute mini organizing binge has the bonus of feelings of accomplishment with a minimal time investment.

Like everyone else, I’m BUSY…but everyone has 15 minutes to spare!

.This is a really quick post to tell you about an organizer I found that actually is really useful and can transform at least a small corner of your life in just 15 minutes….

True confessions: I have a junk drawer in my kitchen that is a hot mess. 

I’m guessing almost everyone has a junk drawer somewhere, and for some reason these seem to attract miscellaneous semi-useful items you need to keep and want to remember you have - along with a bunch of stuff that eventually becomes completely useless after it has aged a bit.

I’ve organized my junk drawer dozens of times, and even fairly recently, but stuff kept getting lost in and around and under the dividers I put in there. They were not optimal sizes and the drawer was a little wider and longer than the dividers reached.

I came across these expandable bamboo organizers (affiliate link) and they are, dare I say (?), life changing.  Or at least drawer changing!

Organizing Step 1: Take everything out and sort

The first step of any organizing project is to take everything out of the space, in this case, the drawer, and decide what to do with each item.  There are only three options:

Toss

Throw away anything broken or no longer relevant to anyone (we’re looking at you, charging cord to unknown device).

Keep

This is the stuff you want to have accessible in this location - the stuff that will go back in, albeit in a logical, organized fashion

Relocate

This is the stuff that could be stored with its brethren elsewhere in the house (the miscellaneous screws and nails can go back to the garage with the rest of the hardware store down there). 

OR the stuff that could be relocated to a new home for someone else to enjoy - I love the local Buy Nothing Facebook group for passing on things that are still good, just no longer needed.

No I don’t know what half of the stuff in here is for.  No I do not need to keep the super glue that is dried to peak sculpture status - toss.

No I don’t need the miscellaneous screws that came out of something up here - relocate. Nor do I need the charging cords to electronics we no longer own  - toss (WHY can’t all electronic devices just have a universal charger please???)

I DO need the pile of bulldog clamps, though - keep. We use those for all kinds of things besides binding stacks of paper…they work as bag clips, and to hold the suet feeder shut securely enough that the squirrels and raccoons can’t steal the suet.

And we need the spare batteries, lighters, tape measures, a few tools, etc - keep. keep. keep.

Organizing Step 2: Categorize items

Now that we’ve decided on the keepers, group them into like items - all the tools together, all the batteries together, all the charging plugs together, all the clips together…

Organizing Step 3: Containerize items

Finally, I can unbox my new organizers and get to work figuring out how much space each category will need. The “container” in this instance, is the specific drawer cubbyhole we’ll create with the dividers.

My old dividers never had a big enough space for the lighters or the tack hammer and it always meant the drawer wouldn’t close unless everything was sitting juuuuuust right.

These came with 4 spring loaded long dividers and 9 inserts in two different sizes to slide in-between them to create compartments. This allows me to organize the drawer all the way to the edges. Yay!

And here is my new and much improved junk drawer with my new wiz bang dividers.  Junk drawer seems too demeaning a name for something this nicely organized?!  I need a better word than junk…taking suggestion :)

This makes me happy every time I open it now. I can always put my hands on exactly what I need AND I don’t have to jostle everything around to get it to close anymore.  Win-win-win.

Next, I need to tackle a spare closet that’s acquired a life of its own, but that is not quite so quick of a project.

What’s your favorite quick organizing project?