Junk Drawer Challenge

A friend of mine told me the other day that she had been cleaning out some drawers before tackling the bigger project of her master closet. She wanted to have some "successes" before starting her closet. I thought that was a brilliant idea, so I decided that we should all tackle our junk drawer together. 

Since you know me, you know that I do clean out my junk drawer regularly, but things still end up there that don't belong.

Here is my junk drawer:

Start by pulling everything out and putting it on the counter:

You might want to separate it out into piles. I keep my plastic bags and food wraps in here, so I went ahead and put them back in:

Now determine what you want to have in your junk drawer. Some items that are useful include: scissors, pens, paper, stapler, tape, batteries, twist ties, rubber bands, phone charger, to name a few. I actually house a lot of these things in a cabinet to keep little fingers away:

It helps if the smaller items have little homes inside of the drawer to keep things organized:

Now, take all the keepers and put them back in the drawer:

A small pile of stuff is left to deal with:

It is important to go ahead and get this stuff to where it belongs. If your pile is mostly paperwork and you aren't sure where it should go, then give it a temporary home for now. I am going to start walking you through some good paper solutions in the upcoming weeks.

You also might notice that I have some empty space in my drawer and cabinet and that's okay. Here is a picture of my kitchen, it's not large, but I have it set up in a way that allow me to have some "breathing room":

I hope this little illustration helps you tackle your junk drawer!