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I’m always advising people to use systems like the Organizational Triangle to organize and store stuff—but that’s because they work. When you follow the framework of storing all similar items together and making sure there is a designated spot for everything, you reduce the likelihood you’ll accidentally buy duplicates of things you can’t find, spend time stressing out about where something might be, or simply live in a mess. One of the key components of any organizational technique is containers; many techniques call for them to be used outright, but all the methods benefit when you use containers to store your similar items together. You may believe that a drawer counts as a container—and while that is technically true, drawers are not enough. You need to be dividing them.
Why divide drawers?
Depending on your cleaning and organizing style, you may be into the idea of “out of sight, out of mind.” It’s a good practice to make use of cabinets, drawers, and other storage spaces, absolutely, but it’s not quite as helpful if there’s a mess within them. Designating a drawer for a certain category or categories of items is a solid step and you should do it, but you should also take your organizing to the next level by making sure the clutter in there doesn’t defeat the purpose.
I believe in really granular organizing. A drawer could be used for underwear, shapewear, socks, tights, and undershirts, for instance, and that would be fine, since you’re storing all those similar items together in keeping with the rules—but it would get confusing after a while. A drawer could be designated for hair accessories, too, but there’s a difference between elastics, scrunchies, sports headbands, fashionable headbands, claw clips, bows, barrettes, bobby pins, decorative pins—you get the idea. There’s also a difference between when and how often you actually use those. When I’m getting ready to teach my spin class, I reach for a tight, grippy headband, not the elaborate crocheted kind I wear to the beach. If they were all tossed into the same drawer—the hair accessory drawer—I’d find what I was looking for eventually, sure, but it would take some time and annoy me. When I got home from class, I might not even want to put the sports band back in there, knowing it would just be a hassle to find before the next class in two days. That’s how an organizational system falls apart.
Dividing your drawers keeps everything more organized and allows you to make hyper-specific categories. Plus, it prevents you from accumulating too much clutter. Smaller compartments within the drawers will force you to keep only what you really need. A big drawer that can collect a whole bunch of stuff is just inviting you to buy and hold onto a whole bunch of stuff.
Divide your drawers
You have two main options when it comes to dividing your drawers up. Both are good, but they have different applications and benefits. First, you can just buy a regular drawer divider. They make them for all kinds of drawers, from silverware…
…to clothing.
These work great for keeping everything separated and organized within a drawer without taking up too much extra space, but they’re a little inflexible. You only have the amount of category space allowed by the dividers. It may work for you, but overall, I suggest trying uniform storage containers within drawers instead. They can be stacked or arranged however you want and can provide a greater variety of options for different categories. If you’re organizing your tech drawer, for instance, you can use a container that fits all your cords, but also a bigger one to fit old devices and another smaller ones for remotes or batteries. It’s more customizable that way. Try something like this:
