2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 3: The Junk Drawer

posted in: Simple Living | 2

Inside: Today we turn to decluttering the junk drawer–or drawers! The humble junk drawer is not without mystery. A motley assembly of odds and ends, from whence they came, who knows? Time to de-junk them! 

A junk drawer.
One of several junk drawers in my house. Notice the army man in the corner? He’s been sent on a reconnaissance mission.

Decluttering the Junk Drawer

Junk drawers. We all have them–or, well, if you don’t, then please seek medical attention immediately!

You’ve seen one of mine. I have several more. Today will be a piece of cake–or, more likely, 25 pieces of junk. What types of things might you find taking up space in a junk drawer?

  • pencil stubs
  • pens with dried ink
  • markers, crayons
  • half used batteries
  • screws or nails from various projects
  • keys to who knows where
  • scraps of paper
  • tape, dried out glue sticks
  • paper clips, rubber bands
  • old pairs of glasses
  • plenty of miscellaneous

How Did I Do?

Hmm. . . Well, out of the 25 designated items, I got rid of 26. And here’s the crazy part–I didn’t really add much to the junk drawer since the last purge, except for one area–slips of paper. Each drawer had pretty much remained the same aside from this habit I have of jotting down tiny bits of important info on little slips of paper. (Okay, so important can be a recipe I don’t want to forget or some blog post ideas or writing related information for clients from my day job as editor.) I was able to declassify 11 such slips of paper and dispose of them. So then I went on a hunt for other junk drawers that, while not perfectly organized, didn’t contain anything needing to be pitched. No old appliance warranty info or the manual to an old vacuum cleaner. All of those were current.

So I got creative and opened up my ottoman which I’ve been storing some notebooks in, plus a few old magazines. I ended up finding fifteen old printed pages from some online class and three gardening magazines I’m going to talk my mom into taking off my hands. (Right, Mom?)

So today, ironically, was all about tossing paper. As tomorrow will be. Stop by then for the grande-sized challenge when I attempt to throw away 75 papers.

But for now, team, you know the drill. Go open those drawers and throw away stuff! You can do it! Rah, rah, rah!

What odd items might we find in your junk drawer? Tell us about it in the comments.

Related posts:

Announcing the 2018 Decluttering Challenge! (Rules for the challenge found here.)

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 1: The Kitchen

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 2: The Spare Bedroom

2018 Decluttering Challenge, Day 4: Paper

5 Good Reasons to Declutter

 

 

 

2 Responses

    • amy@amyharkemoore.com

      I know what you mean, Barbara. Me, too!:-) Maybe next year we’ll expand it to at least two weeks.