If you do ONE thing this week...

CLEAN OUT YOUR 'SPECIALTY' UTENSIL DRAWER.



Not your regular utensil drawer, with forks, spoons, and butter knives. Unless that of course is a disaster too. I’m talking about my serving spoons, whisks, measuring cups, you name it. If yours is anything like mine, it's out of control!



Do you know you use 20% of your utensils 80% of the time? And most likely you waste 90% of the time digging trying to find the one you are looking for because you have just a hodge-podge of thrown-all-in-one drawer miscellaneous utensils.

I can almost guarantee that your drawer fits under one - if not all three - of the scenarios below:

1) You can't find anything. Okay, maybe some things, like those items that were just used, washed and placed on top the pile, but where was that black serving spoon we used to have? Or the whisk?



2) Even if you could see what you wanted, it's not always easy to remove. Take the rolling pin for example. You might have it neatly organized on the side of the drawer but now it's buried underneath the peeler and the spatula. The effort it takes to dislodge the rolling pin almost makes you want to pat the dough rather than roll it. And what about the intertwined potato masher and pastry cutter? Not an ideal set-up if you're in a hurry. And nowadays - who isn't?!?



3) The drawer doesn't even open or close properly. Now you know you have a problem when this happens. Wooden spoons and ladles get contorted so much that the drawer gets stuck on its way open. Or you can’t remember how to arrange the funnels so that the drawer will actually close again.



If you have any of these issues, this week it's time to conquer the chaos. But I can just hear the naysayers now: Hailey, you can’t possibly keep this drawer looking nice and tidy for very long. And my response. Yes you can.



Drawer dividers are ideal for this type of organization but if you don't want to spend the money, you can neatly organize the drawer to be functional and orderly. It's only criteria: (1) everything can be found, (2) everything can be easily removed, and (3) the drawer opens and closes with ease. And this may mean in the process of cleaning, you also get rid of some (i.e. you already had one (or two) and don't need yet another) or totally unknown to you (i.e. um, what does this do?).



And keep in mind when you're wondering why you started this project - clutter control is a healthy, beautiful thing.