Start small; Declutter a drawer

Decluttering your home can be overwhelming if you look at the BIG picture. So don’t look at the big picture. Instead, start small. Focus your effort on a single drawer.

1.  Target a drawer

Pick a drawer any drawer. This drawer looks like a good candidate.

Bathroom drawer (the before picture)

I call this drawer my cosmetic junk yard (yes, I’m sheepishly taking ownership of this mess).

2.  Take everything out

This step is critical. Everything must go.

Keep removing stuff

Don’t be tempted to stop short. Remove everything from the drawer.

3.  Clean the drawer

<imagine my empty drawer – I forgot to take a picture>

Now that everything is out, clean the drawer. You’re starting over. Imagine that you’ve just moved into your home. 

4.  Purge

• Remove things that should be somewhere else 
• Throw away expired items and junk
• Make a pile of useful things you don’t use: the give-away pile

5.  Group alike items

Next organize things into groups, rather like organizing Halloween candy after trick or treating. For example, I made a pile of my teeth products, my lotion products, my deodorants, and my travel sized stuff.

Misc freebies from my dentist

6.   Put things in the drawer

But first, shut your eyes and imagine your drawer. How do you want your drawer to look? What do you need in your drawer? Once you know what you need and how you want it to look, open your eyes and make it happen.

When I shut my eyes, I imagined my bathroom drawer with the things I use daily. No duplicates or backup products.

My new drawer

Ah, much better. Everything I need is readily available. 

Peace and order now reign where there was previously chaos. I open my bathroom drawer and smile.

“Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris

The miracle of baking soda

I had just nestled into my bed with my Kindle on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I started reading an article from the Chicago Tribune: A baking soda miracle by Supriya Doshi. 

Supriya wrote about her experience cleaning a stove top. I read - ”you know, the brown stuff that develops after pasta boils over?“ And I thought yeah, I know that brown stuff. Supriya described how she’d used miraculous baking soda to remove the brown stuff. Brilliant!

I instantly left my reading lair and went downstairs to work on my stove. I’m a little embarrassed to show you the before picture, but it makes for a dramatic comparison. Anything for the blog, right? Wink.

 

Yes, I know that brown stuff. I put on This American Life, grabbed my baking soda, added water and scrubbed. And scrubbed. I spent 15-20 minutes on this project, and found it oddly rewarding and meditative. My mind was captivated by the stories of This American Life, while I mindlessly scrubbed. I didn’t worry about the stove top getting scratched. I didn’t worry about what chemicals were in the cleaner. And it was all at no cost, since I already had the baking soda. My results:

Much better! My alliance to commercial cleaners is fading fast. I don’t need a special cleaner to clean my stove top. Baking soda works brilliantly. 

Why did I buy commercial cleaners in the past? Marketing. Packaging. Advertising. Convenience. I fell for all these traps. Now, I’d like to try a few homebrew recipes from the web. Why do such a silly thing? My motivations are non-toxic ingredients and less packaging.

What’s your favorite natural or homemade cleaner? Please leave a Comment.

Sixty uses of baking soda
*To clean more of the dirt, chemical residues, and waxes from fruits and vegetables, use baking soda.