Got Junk?
Kathi Burns CPO?
Professional Organizer and Personal Stylist - I help smart, creative, entrepreneurs go from overwhelmed, indecisive & disorganized to clear automated systems & strategies that generate income! / Dynamic Keynote Speaker
Junk drawers have always fascinated me. They say you can tell a lot about a person by what is in their junk drawer and after 17 years in the field, I have to agree. Doing a little bit digging into what others think about their junk drawers I came upon some delightful snippets.
For instance the synonym of a junk drawer is: a drawer with miscellaneous low-value contents. As a Pro organizer the word miscellaneous is almost NEVER used! SO I am not feeling this one!
: A collection of small items that are not otherwise classifiable, and which have a limited potential purpose
: A curious placeholder of memories and meaninglessness.
My all time favorite - although not really accurate: The Has-Been Bin. That roll-out repository where you toss your odds and ends. Sometimes very odd odds and ends. Sometimes whatnot never to be seen again.
For some reason people can't throw the items within their junk drawer out, but they don't know what to do with them so they end up there.
I personally think is the most accurate definition for a ‘proper’ junk drawer, meaning a drawer with purpose is this:
The junk drawer is the catchall drawer. It contains the items that you need and regularly use but that don’t really require their own designated spot.
It’s time for me to admit that when I originally wrote this article I had not cleaned out my junk drawer for at least 2 years. Truth be told, it was created when we moved in!
I do feel that every home should have one (ONE) junk drawer and I often help my clients create them. A good junk drawer is a designated place to stash the miscellaneous and random tools like matchbooks, keys, screwdrivers, pens and tape.
The drawer I chose to use had big appeal to me as a junk drawer when I set up house for 2 reasons:
It was located in my kitchen
It was the smallest drawer in the kitchen.
Since my kitchen, like most, is the family hub, it made sense to create a junk drawer there. And my rational is that if I used a very small drawer, I would probably have less junk. And due to it’s size, it would not take long to get out of control and I would be prompted to clean it out sooner, as opposed to later!
So when I decided to organize it, I dumped everything out into my large salad bowl and made quick work of sorting and tossing.
One bag for trash, one bag for donate (I have no idea where all of the pens and post it pads came from), one bag for outbound to other drawers and all of the rest back into the new drawer organizer.
Click to see the result and read the rest of my journey