How to Declutter your Drawers in 5 ways

How to Declutter your Drawers in 5 ways from North Carolina Lifestyle Blogger Adventures of Frugal Mom

Ever wonder how such a space, as small as drawer boxes, seem to always end up like being hit by a tornado a few days just after you organized it? There are better ways to declutter your drawer boxes and here are 5 smart tips.

Tip 1: Stop treating your drawers like trash bins.

The first thing you want to do is to find out which ones are actually trash and which ones are not. A quick way to do this is to bundle them accordingly. For example, put all the business cards in one pile, keys in another, etc. After that, look intently on each pile and ask yourself if they belong in that drawer, belong in some place else, or if they have to be thrown in the trash. Depending on what you use the drawer boxes for, the stuff that you probably do not want to throw out are post it notes of your passwords, important business cards, makeup and medicine.

Once you have decided on which ones to keep in the drawer, you may want to add multi-section inserts compartmentalize your stuff. You can take a look at the piles you have created earlier as reference for the sizes of sections you want to have. After installing the multi-section inserts in you drawer boxes, try fitting all the items in. In case it does not fit. Find an old tupperware, ziplock or something similar, put the excess items in, and keep those stuff in a faraway place where it will not do any harm to your newly organized drawer.

And here is the kicker. Give your new organized closet a run for about a month or two. If you never feel the need to open those banished overflow of items, fetch those items back and throw them away. What you did not need for two months, you will not be needing for another two years.

Tip 2: Precision is key when shopping for inserts.

As discussed in the previous tip, multi-section inserts are your friend when combating against the evil that is drawer clutter. One thing you have to make sure of though is that you should have the perfect sections to fit your need. It is tempting to just take a picture and show that around in the hardware shop, but that never works unless you add a little context. There are several ways into obtaining that perfect set of inserts for your drawer.

The first option is to measure it. It is probably the toughest one but if you did well in your art subjects, this is going to be a breeze. Just take out your ruler, start drawing on the drawer boxes with an erasable pencil, and start measuring every edge. It is a good idea to draw these sections and label each one with its width.

The second option takes a bit of work physically but is probably more precise. Using unused sturdy paper like layered newspapers, you can create actual boxes to model the exact sections you want. Fit these boxes into the drawer boxes until each box fits perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle. Take these cutouts to the hardware store and, voila, you should be going home with perfect inserts for your drawer boxes.

Tip 3: Why not make it yourself?

I can do this by myself – probably some famous last words before you end up sobbing on the floor with paper cuts and bruises all over your body. But hey, if others can do it you can too. So dust yourself off, pick yourself up and probably stick on some band aids because we are going to make our own inserts and regain some of the pride that you lost.

What you wanna think about first is what material you are going to be making your inserts out of. The popular choice is thick paper like cardboards, cartons, or cereal boxes. Depending on what stuff you are going to put in, you can choose a sturdier one or a thinner one. The cardboard is the safe choice but it can be a bit thick and could shrink the storage space. Cereal boxes and similar materials are not as thick but are flimsy. You can, at the least, probably be able to store garments in them as long as they are soft like undies. Another way you could go it to use shoe boxes, this material could actually be the perfect blend of sturdy and thin, but unless you own several racks of shoes, you probably will not have enough to cover your drawer boxes.

A far flung option that you could go for is to actually do a little carpentry work. This is not for the faint of heart. You are going to have to pick up tools and it could seriously ruin your tops. On a more serious note though, nothing beats good old hard wooden inserts to compartmentalize your drawer boxes.

Tip 4: Versatility is key

Say you looked at your brand new drawer and already foresee a massive clutter abound. You want to put in the right sections but you do not have a clue yet on what you are going to put in there and by how much. The best approach to this problem is to divide the drawer boxes equally. This means start off by creating quadrants at the minimum. Later on, you can further subdivide these equal parts whenever you feel the need to do so.

If you have not bought the drawer boxes yet, it might be a swell idea to buy ones that already have the inserts on them. This could save you a lot of time, headaches and bouts of hide and seek with your stuff.

Tip 5: No food allowed

As a general rule of thumb, you should not store food in your drawers, especially those that take some time to consume. Best case scenario is, you waste that space for a few days until the food is all eaten up. The worst case is, it stays there so long that it starts to leak to other parts of your drawer boxes.

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