Ok, ya’ll, we’re gonna tackle the junk in your trunk, aka your junk drawers. These are the 3 Rules of Having a Junk Drawer the OFab Way.

1. Only Allow Yourself One Junk Drawer

Some of us have many drawers of weird, aka junk drawers. Why, you ask? Because when you don’t know what to do with something, your natural instinct is to shove it in a drawer in the kitchen.

I have been telling people what’s in their junk drawers for years. I can tell you what’s in yours right now. 

• Pens / pencils - do any of them work?

• Phone chargers - do any of them work for your current phone?

• Broken parts of things around the house - random screws, nails, hardware and always the wrong screwdriver.

Also see: old receipts, business cards, twist ties, old rubber bands, a half eaten bag of chips, a measuring tape in case you need to check your waist size and anything else you haven't used in the last year.

So, here’s the OFab Way to handle your junk drawer situation: You only need one (in the kitchen). You may have another in the garage/laundry room.

2. Declutter - sort “like” with “like” and get rid of excess 

This is a major process, but you can’t organize without knowing what you’re dealing with. Take everything out, take a good look at each item and decide if it's something you really need to keep. 

You don’t need to keep everything in your junk drawer. Be sure to edit the drawer every six months or so to make sure it doesn't become cluttered again with any items that are unused or no longer necessary.

Don’t forget to get rid of or relocate things you have multiples of. For example, keep one roll of tape in your junk drawer and the other where you store wrapping paper—or wherever you keep your back-stock of other extra household items. 

3. Rearrange using drawer organizers and dividers  

Use drawer organizers to keep your junk drawers tidy. There are lots of options out there, but we like to recommend these from The Container Store. 

Another easy way to organize junk drawers, especially those with uniquely sized and shaped items, is by using adjustable drawer dividers.

All in all, you have to have a place to put things you don’t know where to they go in your home. You just need to be able to see everything in said space.

You don’t have to have a drawer - it can be a cabinet, garage area or closet - just as long as you can access the weird in your life - and we all need a little weird in our life.