Step by Step Guide to Declutter your Junk Drawer

Feeling overwhelmed just looking at your junk drawer? Follow this step by step guide to declutter your junk drawer. Most of us have areas in our homes that we wish were better organized. The biggest challenge is to know where to start. With so many spaces in need of decluttering and organizing, it is easy to feel overwhelmed.

Start small, with one drawer or one shelf. I recommend starting with the junk drawer because it is not real personal to us like our clothes, books, photos or papers. Here are a few quick easy steps to get you started on your junk drawer.  Don’t forget to take a picture of it before you begin, so you can see your progress.

Step by Step Guide to Declutter Your Junk Drawer

1. Empty everything out of the drawer.
2. Clean the inside of the drawer.
3. Sort the items from the drawer into piles. Put like with like. Trash and broken items go directly into the trash.
4. Next go through each pile. Put each item into one of these four categories: Keep, Relocate, Donate/Sell or Trash.  First pick out the items that you want back in the drawer. Then go through the rest of the pile and decide if it’s still useable. Does it belong in another place in the home? Do you know of someone else that could use it?
5. Once you have gone through all the piles, you will see what goes back in the junk drawer. Consider the number of containers or boxes you will need to help separate the items in the drawer. This is very important! For the drawer to stay fairly organized each item or types of items needs to have a home.  Their “home” needs to be labeled so everyone knows what goes in it.
6. Often we have small containers or boxes around our home that we can use for containment or dividers. Gather all the small containers together and see how they fit into the drawer. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You can make changes at any time. If you wish to invest in containers, measure the drawer and think about the sizes of containers you will need before you purchase.
7. Remember to take care of those other piles. Relocate the items to their correct places. Donate or giveaway items need to be put in a bag or box ready to go out the door. Remember to label them.
8. Take a picture of the drawer to compare with the before photo.  They are so fun to look at!   I’d love to see them. Send them to @restoreorderhome on Instagram.

This process should take less than 30 minutes! It’s when we have the undecided item that slows us down. If you have any of those, don’t think too long or hard about it. Set aside to make a decision later. You want to keep the momentum going. Sometimes we need another person’s opinion to decide.

When your newly organized junk drawer is completed, you will find yourself opening and closing the drawer just to look at it.  It is that satisfying! 

Final Words

I took up Nancy of @restoreorderhome ‘s challenge and decluttered my whole junk drawer in under 30 minutes. It felt refreshing to relocate lost items, and get rid of clutter that had landed there. I continue to allow a junk drawer in my home for those items that don’t have a home yet, or need to simply get off the counter quick when I’m strapped for time. Decluttering a junk drawer is a simple routine that I like to accomplish every few months. This allows just enough clutter to accumulate, but not enough to completely overtake the drawer and overwhelm me.

Join the Discussion

What’s the one space in your home that needs a 30 minute declutter?

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