Man, I know I'm bunged up, but c'mon. Live a little. :-)

scagnetti

My parents have the world's greatest junk drawer. When I was younger and still at home, I always wanted to just toss everything out. Finally one day I took a look at everything in it and there was nothing of use or value, so I emptied the thing into the trash bin, dusted it out, and put in some clean stationary. My dad came home and went completely ballistic on me, yelling in my face that I was insane! and that my mom was going to rip me apart.

So what could you do if you liberated yourself from it, you ask? You could end up in therapy or the hospital if you're not careful.

Tighe

i cleaned out my junk drawer then had to go apologize to everyone i accused of stealing some of the stuff i just found in there.

MuglyTheWorm

Wrong... A junk drawer is good. Just clean it out once a year or so (you might be surprised at the little treasures you find) and it's a great place for exactly the stuff he scolds us about (pushpins, random fridge magnet, rubber bands, stray batteries, disposable lighters, birthday candles, etc.

I actually have two junk drawers.. One for the random stuff mentioned above, and one strictly for kitchen stuff like chopsticks, odd kitchen tools, even a couple of those leftover packs of hot mustard from the Chinese place.

;-)

jsmorley

Nothing, because I don't have anything other than junk to put in that drawer and also mine is not magical like the author's drawer. "Now instead of a small overstuffed junk drawer I have a large empty cabinet to put to better use." Wow, so your small drawer magically transformed when you removed all the junk from it? Damn! If that happened to me I would store all kinds of large items in the cabinet. Perhaps my toolkit so it would be closer to the door rather than all the way in the basement.

Gobd

"clutter expert?" Do you get dental with that?

sam1am

The closest thing I have to a junk drawer is my "Kitchen Gadgets" drawer. Steam basket, cherry pitter, lemon/lime juicer, Cork Screw, Chop Sticks, Measuring Spoons, Cheese Grater, etc...

I also have a "Consumables Kitchen Drawer" with saran wrap, aluminum foil, baggies, parchment paper, butchers twine, and cheese cloth.

I do have a drawer in my desk with a bunch of the stuff mentioned in a typical junk drawer though. Rubber bands, paper clips, binder clips, thumb tacks, etc...

I guess I'm doing it right then. I'm curious where people store their people store their soy sauce and ketchup packets though. I just toss mine to keep things tidy.

Douch3er

So...junk is bad. Thank you, Lifehacker.

elgilicious

@Gobd: I think you missed the part where he moved the tea from the cabinet to the newly empty junk droor. He was then able by emptying the junk droor and moving the tea, to open up the large cabinet for pots and pans.

nka

If the junk in a drawer is "All Too Much", perhaps cleaning it out will make for "A Hard Day's Night".

penguiniator

@Douch3er: I agree pretty much 100%. I think the difference is that rather than having a random item drawer, many of the items have a more suitable home. Paper clips and tacks in the desk, menus in a folder with the phone book, saran wrap and ziplocks together.

It's not that these items are trash, they just have a place that makes more sense.

@sam1am: Yes if you keep your drill and picks in the right place... and are willing to do it yourself.

ugly

Personally, I despise junk drawers...they go against my organized nature. I do not allow a junk drawer anywhere that I live. For me, a junk drawer is the equivalent of someone's nails screeching down a blackboard. Ewww!

A place for everything and everything in its place. If it is not in its place, then something is wrong...

I apply the same style to all of my computer files as well so that I can always find my pictures, documents, and install files when I need them. ^__^

Asian Angel

I agree that there isn't anything wrong with a "junk drawer" but I prefer to call it something like a "catch all" drawer. I do clean it out once a year or so and throw out the random bread bag ties, corks, and broken magnets, BUT I also keep my multipurpose tools in there (leatherman) for when I don't want to drag out the tool chest, a small flashlight, and a couple extra batteries for the remote.

geekgrrl77

I do have a junk drawer, the rest of the house is crammed with junk too. If I empty the drawer I'm not sure I can close my front door.

teahot

I love my junk drawer. My parents always had one in their house, so I just took the idea with me. My in-laws have one too. They kept about the same stuff in theirs - hammer, flashlight, couple screwdrivers, and the random stuff. It works for us.

As for those of you who think I'm insane, I'm not going to buy an organizer for all the various pins, coasters, and batteries I keep in that drawer. If I have enough of those things I would though it seems like a waste of money and space to have a designated area for trinkets like that. You just shift the "junk" into a different area of the house and call it organized.

whitlock

Peter Walsh is a great author, who takes a very holistic, almost philosophical approach to decluttering your life.

If you're not prepared to take the plunge and buy his book yet (and you should), he has written an article (excerpted from his book) over at HousekeepingChannel.com:

[www.housekeepingchannel.com]

There's also loads of great organizing articles and tips at that site, too:

[www.housekeepingchannel.com]

siliconkibou

Drawer of life. How many times have I pulled out the much-needed birthday candle or wooden chopsticks or screwdriver for my wife's eyeglasses or pizza coupon?

And while looking for those things, find a stray stamp-sized high-school portrait of my college freshman or shot glass from that night out or a note that my wife put in a lunch bag or small impromptu coloring done by one of the kids?

Who wants to give that up for a sterile empty space?

Hey - let's line up our books on the shelf in height order next!

dananjohn

@Stormbringer: True, true. But the occasional punch in the ribs should keep them on their toes.

elgilicious

I actually do have a junk-type drawer in my kitchen, and even though I LOVE Peter Walsh, I won't be getting rid of it anytime soon.

The drawer doesn't open all the way because it hits a door frame, so it really isn't suitable for anything but a junk drawer. So it is the home of take-out chopsticks, elastic bands, and twist ties. The things that don't have a home anywhere else.

I do go through it every few months though, just to make sure that I don't keep too much crap in there.

saffyre9

@elgilicious: They can't all be gems, bound to be an occasional miss. At least it's not religious or political.

Stormbringer

Depends. Which one of them?

Peter Dahl

every time i try and sift through my junk drawer my wife stops me throwing stuff out, there's a travel connect 4 in there from our first foreign holiday together and a pack of hardcore gay porn playing cards from a holiday we took with friends.

None of these , and a dozen others, can be thrown out because of "sentimental reasons" despite the fact they haven't left the drawer since they were thrown in there when we moved in 6 years ago.

Screw it , I'm going to dump everything in it tomorrow when she goes shopping, see how long it takes for her to notice

Cripesonfriday

functional junk drawer, in my house. if it's useful and I don't know where else to put it, it goes in there. where else would I keep birthday candles, a spare allen key for the treadmill, some tacks (which I use in the kitchen and living room as well as the office) riubberbands, a set of twist ties, a spare stapler, pens, and the extra keys?

It's in the hall at my house, so it's right outside every room where I could need any of that stuff. It saves me time by taking up space...

I guess if you have stuff you can't actually use in the drawer this makes some kind of sense

resonanteye

Did I read this right.....he put TEA in what was the junk drawer......do you seriously expect me to take life-style advice from a man who stores tea in a drawer?
Just how much tea does this man have?
weird....weird....weird

muddypaws

@jsmorley: To me, that sounds like organized junk.

:)

CITguy

Peter Walsh got his panties in a bunch in a major way with that book. Someone needs to tell him to just chill.

Yeah, I have one small junk drawer. If Peter Walsh wants to come over here and clean my house for free, he can do whatever he wants with the contents.

infmom

Dammit - I like clutter.

Terry

Junk drawers aren't really full of "junk". They're full of the items which you have so few of that they defy being placed in a category that requires a special place. I don't actually have a junk drawer, but I do have a bin where miscellaneous household items dwell. It's in the storage area under my sofa bed. Things like extra pegs for my husbands tie rack, curtain rings and hooks, tools, bits of fabric, and glue and staple guns reside there. These things really don't belong anywhere else, but they are useful and shouldn't be tossed out.

I think you just need to purge these areas once a year or so and question whether the items are worth keeping or not. Having a catch-all space isn't a bad thing.

ShariC

Absolutely agree with ShariC about the items which have no other place. I'd been `cultivating' a junk drawer for a few months and after getting inspired by Allen's Getting Things Done, cleared it out and put the useful stuff (which mostly turned out to be documents and manuals and stuff) in a set of hanging folders. It's looking pretty darn good.

Yawar Amin

Ahem. Mr. Wash. I'm only going to say this once: You. Are. Wrong. Do I make myself clear?

But I'll live and let live and let you OCD folks live the way that makes you happy. I'll live the way that makes me happy. Having my junk drawer is a useful time saver, and I'm not enough of a packrat to keep things like expired ketchup packets in there to begin with. You've wasted far more time worrying about this than whatever small amount you may have gained from the increased organization (and even that saved time is difficult for me to believe).

snaildarter

@Jason Fitzpatrick: I'm only going to say this once: No. Junk. Drawer.
Why? I'm not sure what the harm is here. It's only one drawer, so it's not wasting space. It's much better putting miscellaneous stuff in one known location than scattered throughout the house in various locations.

I like my junk drawer and I'm afraid i'm going to have to keep it.

magnoliasouth

my special drawer is full of parts. it contains mostly screws, bolts, nuts, and washers that i have scavenged from various items before i threw them away (along with some wire, a motor or two, a few mains leads, some LEDs and small bulbs, a couple gaskets, a nice stack of magnets, and a wealth of other small bits and bobs). ten minutes spent disassembling a broken blender for the parts can save a couple of 40 minute trips to the hardware store down the road. i can't count how many times my parts drawer has lead to a successful home repair, and an 'attaboy' from my wife :)

garbanzo-bean

I have the following junk receptacles:

- a large wooden dish that is supposed to be for pens and pencils, etc, but appears to be a crap magnet and currently has a cheap plastic fairy wand (2 year old daughter's, not mine)and a wad of 'entertain the kids in the summer' type leaflets
- a bureau (flip down, 2 drawer) which is always full of rubbish. When people arrive unexpectedly, all the debris associated with running a family gets swept in there in one well practiced motion, kind of like tai chi or something. This place scares me. I know not what it contains, but I think all of my mini usb cables are in there somewhere.
- a filing cabinet, where one drawer is properly organised (hanging files, labels, the works) and the other drawers are full of stuff that should be somewhere else, probably the local dump.
- other, smaller pots, drawers, etc, used for the staged storage of rubbish on it's journey around the house.

My problem is that my other half's definition of 'putting something away' is 'move it out of sight' which is not the same thing.

Is there some sort of support group?

righteye

I don't have a junk drawer to put leftover knickknacks.

What I do have is an organizer drawer for small items that would get lost in the shuffle if they weren't organized. What's in it?

- USB recharger, adaptor and AA/AAA batteries
- flashlight (the drawer near the front door)
- address book & business car folder, plus pen and paper
- envelopes and one specific envelope for bills to pay

And so on. One can have a purposeful drawer if one tries.

In fact, the goal shouldn't be to eliminate the drawer, but to make sure that all your "fiddly things" are kept in one place and the amount kept to a minimum.

P_Smith

Didn't you get a buzz from exploring this junk drawer and throwing away the crap? Why can't you use that. Make a new junk compartment for those rainy days when you can't find anything to do.

xenobyte72

@ShariC: I agree. I think, also, that the problem a lot of people are having is with the definition of "junk" drawer. I think for those people with a truly "packrat" nature, cleaning out that drawer is a good idea. If, however, you have a "catch-all" drawer (which, in my opinion, is different), then just checking it every now and again is probably fine.

Me? I'm a packrat, and have to clean out junk every now and again.

lacrimaeveneris

I don't own a kitchen. I mean, there's one in the home but I'm not allowed to use it unless everyone has been evacuated and all valuables are safely in fireproof containers.

That said, I keep a trio of "junk boxes." I have a pair of large plastic totes. One contains leftover electronics and computer junk, MP3 players, headphones, cables, etc. 80-90% of it gets used for various tasks in a makeshift recording studio, videography projects, etc... just not every day.

The other large box contains household junk that would otherwise be thrown out or stacked in a closet. Candle-holders, baskets, trinkets, picture frames, storage stuff, etc... I gotta admit that this stuff often ends up in a yard sale, but this box gets opened whenever I clean up or reorganize a room. Things go in, things come out. It keeps clutter down.

The third tote is smaller, but growing. It's for materials, electronic components, string, wires, jewelry parts, guitar parts, broken toys, old clothes, craft supplies, etc. Anything that can be used, re-used, or recycled whenever I get the urge to construct something. And yes, everything eventually gets used, if not always exactly as planned.

The rest of my home is highly organized (when it's not on fire). What's wrong with having a few plastic totes in my workshop full of junk? Stacked, they take less space than my table saw and provide a usable work area on top.

If the boss ever lets me in the kitchen there will be a junk drawer, oh yes... and it shall be fireproof.

guardianfox

Lotta rude comments here. Good post though.

nskyers

I love my junk drawer. I am always getting a tool or something out of it. I say keep it. It saves me lots of trips to the garage.

steelew

Oh Christ, liberation from junk drawers? You have to be kidding me. A small drawer in your kitchen dedicated to random crap isn't ruining your life.

ChainsawFacelift

I'm glad it's not just me who took issue over the 'junk drawer' article. Whilst it may be tempting to put that tape measure and pair of screwdrivers in the toolbox "where they belong", but as several people pointed out it's very handy to have a small amount of items as a point of 'first call', and that tidyness for tidyness' sake doesn't necessarily help you get things done any quicker. Truth be told, three weeks ago I would have been in full agreement with this article because my 'junk drawer' was festering away in the back of my mind and I decided to go through it. But I discovered that the drawer was the ideal place for some of the basic items already in there - paracetamol; notepad and pens; chequebook; 5m tape measure; 2x screwdrivers; pliers; AA batteries; sellotape dispenser; spare keys; DYMO label gun... get the picture? Rather than clear stuff out I bought some small plastic tubs to categorise the above items together rather than lose them in the drawer. Things run a lot smoother now there's a system in the drawer. Besides, there's not much you can do with a kitchen drawer. Hold cutlery and store tea-towels is about it (my tea lives in a cupboard, and that's where it's staying). Peter may have some other good ideas in his book, but in this case I don't think he can see the wood for the trees.

BelindaNipperkin

To each their own, but I like my junk drawer. I can always find a screwdriver, a flashlight, birthday cake candles, batteries. It's all there in one very handy place. Of course sometimes you have to dig through it, but that's the fun of it. Finding this "thing" you forgot you even had. Or needing something which you're pretty sure you don't have then presto! The junk drawer. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for organizing but it just wouldn't feel like home without one well placed snarl of random chaos.

jeffgtr

I would consider it tremendous progress at my house if the junk actually went in drawer(s), instead of strewn about.

bobbo33

Maybe he would call it a "junk drawer" but it is all stuff that is needed and has no other good home:
Tape, Pens, Sharpies, Spare Keys, Flashlights, the suction cup you use to pull halogen lights out of the socket, etc. Yeah, I keep a flashlight in my toolbox but that does me f*** all if the power goes out and I have to feel my way all the way into the basement to find it.

OK if you have a drawer that's basically the storage equivalent of a rug that you sweep dirt under that's probably a bad thing, but as long as it's stuff that is necessary/useful and belongs there (even if by virtue of not belonging anywhere else) it seems like a good thing.

I will offer the advice to not let things build up. At some point I noticed that our collection of Chinese takeout condiment packets had grown large enough that it had its own gravitational field. Solution? I put them all in a sandwich bag and anything that didn't fit was tossed. Then I instituted the rule that if the bag was full, no further packets could be added.

I also have a drawer that I put instruction manuals in. Periodically I sor tthrough it and toss ones for items I no longer have or move ones I rarely need to reference into a file cabinet.

Troy F.

I'd be afraid to actually have to decide on where to put things. They probably belong someone else, but the hardest part of organizing is deciding if the paper clips go with the pencils and pens or just leaving them in the junk drawer. Much easier in the short run to throw it all in the junk drawer

Sketchee