Within: Learn how to get rid of the junk drawer in your house and why this is and then important!

In this post learn the reasons why you should never have a junk drawer. Plus you'll learn the 4 steps to take to get rid of your junk drawer today.  Click over to tackle this space today!

How many times have you pinned an article well-nigh organizing your junk drawer? Or idea, if I just had those awesome dividers from Target, and so I would be and so organized and know where everything is?

I know I have done those things!!

This invitee post from Amanda Warfield shares the hugger-mugger to having an organized junk drawer.

Spoiler alert: it'southward non most the dividers!!

I promise y'all enjoy the mail service and learn a few new tips to try in your ain abode.

If you have whatsoever ah-ha moments, please allow u.s.a. know in the comments!

Take it away, Amanda!


I'm sitting at my desktop computer working on my latest blog post, and my husband yells from down the stairs, "Infant—take you seen my basketball shoes?" And, without missing a beat out, I tell him exactly where they are, and keep typing. I don't have to stop what I'chiliad doing to get up and assistance him look. I don't take to deal with an area he ransacked trying to look for them because neither of us had a clue. Our day just keeps on moving along.

Some variation of this happens almost daily in our home. And 99.9% of the fourth dimension, I know where everything is—because nosotros don't have a junk drawer.

You lot do not demand a junk drawer. In fact, a junk drawer is only going to hamper your power to get organized. I challenge you to get rid of it today, or this calendar week.

Why?

Because the junk drawer is where all of your practiced intentions most getting organized get to die.

In this post learn the reasons why you should never have a junk drawer. Plus you'll learn the 4 steps to take to get rid of your junk drawer today.  Click over to tackle this space today!

Here are a few more reasons to eliminate that junk drawer for good

Junk Drawers Make You Lazy

When you're cleaning up or decluttering, and yous don't know immediately where to put an object, you just throw it in the junk drawer. It's just easier to do so, and that space enables you lot to allow that.

The problem is, y'all're defeating the unabridged purpose of cleaning up. Instead of finding a home for every object, you're only moving the mess from one place to another. Merely what'south going to happen when that junk drawer gets full? Do you lot really retrieve y'all'll finish this habit, or volition a new junk drawer pop up? Maybe the junk will start to pile up on your counter top, or your dresser, or the dining room tabular array.

You lot might remember I'm being dramatic, just habits don't change without intentional thought and activity. If you're allowing yourself to simply throw things into a junk drawer instead of taking the time to have care of information technology, that habit volition keep.

Junk Drawers Allow You to Neglect

Not only will the clutter go on to pile upward, but they'll stop you from existence intentional with your things. When you lot're decluttering or cleaning, you desire to hold each object in your hand and notice an actual home for it (and no, a junk drawer is not a home). The purpose of finding a home for each object is two-fold.

One, it allows you to be able to find things with ease (similar my hubby'due south basketball shoes). Even if you don't know the exact location of something, yous'll likely know around where it is. This is especially helpful when you're trying to find objects that aren't used super often.

Let'due south say you lot're looking for the extra tennis balls you bought a few months agone simply never opened. You know that they might be in the garage, because you store some of your do equipment in in that location. Just you besides know that they might be in your hall cupboard, because you store the exercise equipment that is oft used in there. Fifty-fifty though yous don't know for sure which spot they are in, you've got it narrowed down to two places earlier you fifty-fifty brainstorm. It'll be easy to find them, and you won't have to ransack anything and brand a mess.

In this post learn the reasons why you should never have a junk drawer. Plus you'll learn the 4 steps to take to get rid of your junk drawer today.  Click over to tackle this space today!

2, each object having a dwelling allows y'all to take amend care of your possessions. If everything has a dwelling, you aren't trying to cram it in somewhere, and you aren't just tossing it here or there. You'll naturally, intentionally place it in its home. How many times take you dug through your junk drawer to detect that one of those extra Taco Bell sauces yous decided to go on "just in example", merely forgot near exploded? All over everything in at that place. Now you've got an fifty-fifty bigger mess and you yet haven't found what you're looking for.

Junk Drawers Stress Y'all Out

Your junk drawer is just a junk drawer full of clutter, and clutter stresses usa out. Information technology'south that plain and simple. This 2010 study showed increased cortisol levels in the wives that felt like they lived in a cluttered dwelling, but decreased cortisol levels in those that did not feel that they did. Cortisol is the stress hormone in your brain…the more stressed out yous are, the higher levels of the cortisol hormone that will exist found in you. Every time you open upwards that junk drawer, or even just call up about it, yous're adding unhealthy hormones into your body.

>> Related Post: 25 Benefits Of Decluttering Your Dwelling

So, you've decided you want to cease creating a addiction of laziness, and you want to stop neglecting your things.

How do yous actually practise it?

In this post learn the reasons why you should never have a junk drawer. Plus you'll learn the 4 steps to take to get rid of your junk drawer today.  Click over to tackle this space today!

How to Get Rid of the Junk Drawer

Step I: Pull information technology All Out

Step 1 is incredibly simple (unless you have one of those exploding Taco Bong sauces), and that is to pull everything out of your current junk drawer. It should accept you no more than 5 minutes to do this office, and you'll already be well on your style to getting rid of that junk drawer.

Step Ii: Sort into 3 Piles

Sort everything into 3 piles: go on, trash, or donate. But keep things that y'all actually use. Here's the matter well-nigh junk drawers— they are usually full of things you don't apply or need.

Why?

Because if they were actually important, you'd likely have a home for them. When we struggle to know where to put something, we throw it into the junk drawer where it'due south swallowed by the abyss.

All of those pens and paper clips? If yous used them or needed them, they'd have a home on your desk-bound or nigh your family command middle. Those cords and chargers? Would likely exist plugged in. Those extra sauces? They'd exist eaten! Instead, you've kept all of these things "but in case".

Sometimes, there are objects in there that you lot need and use, and those are what yous need to find a home for. No more procrastinating on this. Detect them a home, or become rid of them.

Everything else?

Trash if it's no expert for anyone, or donate if someone else could love it and apply information technology.

In this post learn the reasons why you should never have a junk drawer. Plus you'll learn the 4 steps to take to get rid of your junk drawer today.  Click over to tackle this space today!

Step Three: Find Homes

Similar I said in the last step, yous have to find actual homes for all of the objects in your keep pile. You lot might exist looking at that pile and thinking that information technology's impossible. Look at all these random, tiny objects! Where in the world practice I await you to put them, right?

Y'all tin can do this. It is possible. We do not accept a single junk drawer in our domicile. Not 1. Those stacks of take out menus? Put them on the side of your refrigerator, or in your family control centre. The newspaper clips? Get a dish and put them on your desk. The random Chapsticks? Catch a  jar and put them all there in 1 spot.

Step Four: Don't Allow Yourself to Relapse!

It tin can be so like shooting fish in a barrel to relapse back into using a junk drawer. An easy way to terminate that from happening is by creating a new purpose for the drawer. If it's in employ past something else, you lot tin can't but throw things in there!

A second way, is to utilise the 5-minute rule in your daily life. If it takes y'all less than 5 minutes to put something away—practice it now. Sometimes when we're cleaning up, we come beyond an object that needs to be put in a box that'due south under our bed, surrounded by other boxes, and we feel similar it's merely likewise much to deal with right now. So, nosotros toss information technology somewhere more than convenient and tell ourselves nosotros'll deal with information technology afterward.

You won't.

Deal with it now.

Even though the process feels involved in your listen, if information technology takes less than 5 minutes to handle, it'southward really non that involved. You've got the time, and then go ahead and take intendance of it.

>> Related Mail service: 10 Rules To Prevent Ataxia Creep

In this post learn the reasons why you should never have a junk drawer. Plus you'll learn the 4 steps to take to get rid of your junk drawer today.  Click over to tackle this space today!

Peradventure yous're reading this and already feeling overwhelmed because you lot know that you lot let the junk drawer problem get out of control. You've got 3 or 4 or even 5 junk drawers throughout your home, and thinking near dealing with all of them is sending some serious cortisol into your brain.

Exhale, friend.

Yous do non take to deal with all of them at once. Set a goal for yourself: tackle one junk drawer a week for the side by side withal many weeks until they are all taken intendance of. Focus on just one drawer, and just one stride at a time. One object at a time. Don't look at the large picture, just instead each tiny stride. Petty steps will add upwards to big progress that you'll be proud of—y'all don't accept to make giant leaps all at once, okay?

Your goal here is to be able to directly your husband or child to what they are searching for without making more piece of work for yourself. No more stopping what y'all're doing and losing focus or concentration to assist them fid what they need. No more cleaning upward a mess they made while looking.

Even better?  Beingness able to tell a invitee in your domicile where something is, and lead them straight to it with simply words. It always feels actually good to be able to direct a guest to the vino opener without having to even turn effectually.

I believe in yous, friend. Want more than on living a simplified life? Grab a copy of my free Basics of Elementary Living workbook.

What is your best tip to get rid of your junk drawer?

Let us know in the comments below!

About the Writer

Amanda Warfield is the owner and creator of Live Organized, Live Elementary. She'due south a recovering perfectionist turned simplicity lover, routines enthusiast, and sheathing wardrobe expert. Her mission is to employ her passion for didactics and her dear of minimalism, organization, and productivity to assistance every overwhelmed adult female detect balance through simplicity.

Amanda is married to Russell, the funniest guy she knows. They are Due south Carolina natives living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and enjoy traveling, reading, and all things Disney (okay, mayhap that last one is simply Amanda).

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In this post learn the reasons why you should never have a junk drawer. Plus you'll learn the 4 steps to take to get rid of your junk drawer today.  Click over to tackle this space today!