How To Organize A Junk Drawer Quickly And Easily

Junk drawers contain many different items and can include anything from loose change, small hardware/tools, and batteries to random papers, pens & pencils, small office supplies and more. But if you find yourself digging through the junk drawer to find the item you need, you should probably spend a few minutes organizing your drawer.

Start by taking everything out of the drawer and separating the items into four different piles…

*The “Garbage” pile: basically anything that is broken or too dirty to consider keeping.

*The “Get rid of” pile: items you may want to donate or sell.

*The “Store elsewhere” pile: for the items that need to be placed elsewhere. You can put these items away in their proper spots when you are done.

*The “Junk drawer” pile: for anything that will be going back into the drawer.

Once you have these piles separated, immediately throw out the “Garbage” pile and set aside the “Get rid of” and “Store elsewhere” piles to deal with when you are done.

For the “Junk drawer” pile, this needs to be separated into categories according to use or type of item. Once this is done, take a look at the size of each pile. This will help you determine what size and shape container you will need to store each category of items in.

There are three ways you can organize your items into a junk drawer…

1. Use several small boxes, containers or baskets (use square or rectangular containers, not round; this will help maximize drawer space). These can be found around your home or in a local store and can be very useful and decorative. They can also be easily replaced and updated to fit your changing needs for the drawer.

2. Purchase a drawer organizer and separate your items into each compartment.  Here’s a great example of an organizer available through Amazon.

3. Look around your home to see if you can possibly use any other household items you may already have handy such as an ice cube tray, flatware organizers, etc.

Once you have chosen what to use, neatly place your items back into the drawer.

The general rule that should apply when organizing your junk drawer is that you want to be able to quickly find everything in the drawer when you open it. Remember to go through your junk drawer on a regular basis and pull out whatever needs to be placed elsewhere and throw out all non-essential items. Maintaining your junk drawer is crucial to quickly finding what you need inside.