| Organizing with Small Boxes | |
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We all have a few drawers in our home where a collection of items is just tossed in, with no real order. Thinking about the disorganization can be exhausting when you consider the number of minutes lost in a year of rummaging through the drawers to find what you need.There are hundreds of drawer organizers on the market, but they all come in different sizes and shapes and are designed to suit different types of contents. The more you look at the variety of organizers, modular boxes, and plastic doodads, the more confusing it gets. | |
| This week I tackled two drawers in less than an hour at no cost. Whenever I have a small cardboard box left over from the packaging of something I’ve purchased, I contemplate if it can be re-used. If I deem it worthy, the box lives in a cabinet in my garage for when I get the bug (or drastic necessity) to organize a drawer, a cupboard, or a closet.Tech boxes are prized for their sturdiness, but mesh produce baskets, cardboard dividers of all sorts, and old ribbon spools can also be put to good use. |  |
In this recent effort to corral my cosmetics, hair ties, and other contents of my bathroom vanity, I employed both the top and bottom halves of the box my air pods came in, the lidded container from an obsolete Fitbit, and a thick plastic box that used to be part of a baby-proof electric socket cover. | |
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The most efficient process starts with dumping everything out and wiping down the drawer bottom.Then remove and relocate (or throw away) any items that don’t really belong in the drawer (goodbye used-up lip gloss tube!). Next, sort everything that does belong by category, bring in the boxes, and try them out to see what fits. With the boxes I had, I could fit two and a half across in the drawer, so I surrounded the empty space in the middle to make use of the negative space between the containers. Sometimes a flat piece of cardboard can be used as a divider between contents.Boxes that are too long for the space can be cut in half and then the cut edges overlapped to create a shorter box of adjustable length. | |
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In my Tupperware cabinet, which I conquered 8 years ago, I used a sock drawer divider crosswise and a small shipping box that was just wider than my plastic lids are long. I divided the dark brown shipping box in half with a piece of thick cardboard to separate different sized lids. Like items were stacked, and miscellaneous misfits were tossed into the recycling bin. The way the items are stacked provides clear visual cues as to where freshly washed items are to be put away.Hence, it’s as organized today as it was when I first tackled it. The key is to organize the space in a way that you can maintain without much effort. | |
