If you’re reading this post, you’re not happy with the state of your desk surface or it’s drawers. Sure, there are plenty of articles and photos online with a divider for every box inside a drawer… but wouldn’t something more personal, something tailored to you, be better? Drawer organization tips – just for you?
Tidying up or keeping the drawers tidy all the time?
It’s relatively easy to get everything showed away from the surface in a few minutes and decorate the surroundings with pretty corkboards, putting chalkboards… Then a few weeks go by, the chalkboard still has the menu for the first week of January, the paper clips have fallen out and stayed there, and the mess has returned to the surfaces. It’s not just you, life comes and goes, you can’t keep it tidy, and you just think you are generally a messy person and home organization is just not for you…
But if you manage to create a well-organized system of your own, you will save time. So, this is the question: would you like to get yourself a gift of 5-10-15 hours next year? Because that’s how much time you’re spending on trying to find stuff in your home… If the answer is yes, then let’s get started with personalised tidying!
What do you use your desk for? Let’s clarify the functions!
Do you work here every day? Do you write your diary here in the evenings? Do you like to sit at your desk and have your afternoon coffee before going through your official paperwork? Do you only need space for your laptop and don’t use paper? Or is this desk also the place in your home where your creative hobbies reside, so glue, paper, ribbons and glitter live here?
Either way, you’ll need something different: there’s no one Pinterest dream board that you can take one-on-one and make work for you.
Drawer organization tips: create your own system!
1 Collect the items you use on your desk every single day.
If it’s just your laptop and coffee mug, that’s okay too. If it’s still a notebook or two, a notepad, the mobile phone stand and the child’s medical papers that are better if they’re on hand every day now and then, then look for those too.
2 Gather the things you need often: they’ll be at your fingertips every week.
Pens, paper clips, cellux, a candle, business card, contracts, bills for reference, papers to be corrected, the special earbuds for a computer game, or other peripherals. Put these within arm’s reach. Not necessarily on the surface, say in the nearest drawer or shelf.
3 Get everything else off the desk and out of the drawers within reach.
Grandmother’s broken necklace waiting to be strung, the floating postcards, receipts, coloured markers containing notes are all destined for exile: they’re just taking up useful space in front of you. You can let some of them go, the rest just needs to be moved to a suitable spot. Box them up, they can go in an external storage unit and go on top of the cupboard or in less-used spaces around your desk – depending on how often you use them.
Items you use every day can stay on the surface of the desk. They won’t gather dust as you turn them over every day.
From now on, you can forget about looking for them, they’ll be at your fingertips! You can focus on studying, work, play or other hobbies, nothing will distract you unnecessarily.
Frequently needed list items should be placed in handy drawers and drawer organisers: keep them within arm’s reach so you don’t waste time searching, but also so they don’t take up space on your desk surface.
Like the idea, but don’t know how to go about it? Are your surfaces cluttered with excess papers, small gadgets, dusty decorative items? Need a little support to see it through?
Now, let’s look at it individually, depending on your use case! Find advice tailored to you! Drawer organization tips should not be the same for everyone…
My desk is where my office works
If your workplace is desk bound, then you know exactly that focus and comfort are essential.
It’s important to arrange your computer when organizing your desk so that you’re sitting in front of it in a completely comfortable position, with your body in a natural and healthy position. It can prevent neck problems, muscle cramps, headaches, swollen feet… it’s worth paying attention!
Count up the notes, notebooks, notepads, pesky business cards and receipts: what you need to do, do it, put what you need to do in your diary and get rid of the rest.
Comb through stationery and documents: what else do you need? 10-year contracts can be archived long ago, and the blue pens you always buy as a matter of routine are enough to keep a few handy, the rest can be put away in storage boxes!
An easy solution would be to stuff them all in drawers, but don’t! A drawer is the best place to keep your frequently used items neatly divided and grouped, clearly under your arm. With drawer dividers and small make-up drawer organizers, you can easily make the contents transparent. Tip: you don’t have to stuff it as far as it will go!
It’s easier and space-saving to store documents and papers vertically. You can use paper folders, paper folders and folders with clasps, genoterms!
You only need to group contracts or project documents once: if you write on the spine of the folder or put a post-it inside the genoterm, you’ll know years later what you put where.
Pinterest has lots of ideas for how many different desk organisers you can make from jars and tins, but if this is where you work, and maybe even receive clients, get a professional, uniform desk organiser for a few thousand forints that’s stylish, big enough and easy to keep clean.
For me, a desk is a place to relax
Whatever your relaxation is for you, it’s important to pick the items that go with it according to how often you use them.
If computer gaming is your hobby, then the headphones, extra large mouse pad, microphone, digital drawing board can be neatly stored in a drawer. The cheapest and easiest magic tool for organizing cables is still the bulldog clip, which is perfect for keeping all those cables coiled up everywhere. And the next time you’re renovating, it’s a good idea to have enough sockets installed in the first place on a computer desk dedicated to gaming, to avoid the need for an extension cord that spans half the house.
Even your favourite books or magazines will look tidier if you arrange them in one direction: spines outwards and stand or lay them in a uniform position! Lockable plastic storage boxes can help you get started with ease and tidy up just as easily at the end. And the storage baskets can hold puzzle pieces, chess pieces, card pieces or even accessories for your instrument, such as a tuner or string cleaner.
Learning, preparation, focused attention – that’s what I use it for!
Notes, notebooks, books and survival hot tea and coffee – that’s your space, right? Before you get overwhelmed by papers, get folders, dividers and extra storage. Drawer organizational tips for everyone!
You can easily squeeze 20-30 pages into a genoterm, but is it worth it? Put enough in one that you don’t have to force it in and out. You can label them by topic and staple them into a big staple folder, so you’re sure to always have the notes you’re looking for. If you get elongated dividers (aka dog language), you can easily browse your folder by the categories marked on the dividers. Never leave off the name of the course, the subject and the exact date and semester: you won’t remember them at all by the time of the final exam.
A wall or shelf next to your desk can be the perfect extension to your study nook, where you can keep the necessary study materials within easy reach in vertical binders, pull-out magazine holders – without getting lost under piles of paper!
My desk is my creative cave
The perennial problem for creative makers is that there are never as many drawers as there are glitter, yarn, paper or paint. Fortunately, today you can easily buy a storage box with 10-12 small compartments that offers a solution for storing beads and ribbons in an organised way.
It’s a good idea to categorise the items you need separately and put them in separate boxes inside the drawer: that way you don’t have to keep a complete set of supplies on hand every time you need to paint.
It’s enough to pull out the pack for one technique, which contains all the tools and materials, starting with the table protector.
Life beyond desk organisation tips: make this space yours!
The biggest problem with pictures clicked off the internet is that even if you tidy them up nicely to look like them, they won’t feel like your own. There are perfect, creative desk planners out there, but what good are they if our desk is also our computer desk, our official filing space and our hobby corner?
Unfortunately, a few inspirational pictures won’t make your home feel any bigger, but finding the right system for you can make it feel bigger and more spacious. Keeping things tidy is up to us. On our goals, finding the right home organisation style for us and creating habits that are sustainable in the long term. It’s all about creating a space, a surface for ourselves where we can be more focused, more concentrated on what we’re doing. For me, that’s the whole point of home organisation!
It’s important to keep the personal bits and pieces that are precious to you when decluttering. Yes, that photo, that cute accessory, has its place if it brings back pleasant memories, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of doing your job efficiently. All that matters is that you decorate in moderation and sensibly!
If you enjoy fiddling with odds and ends, decorate your own little containers, line them with uniform paper, shop happily at the stationery shop to fill in the missing supplies. If you’re the more practical type, get rid of your excess items and place an online order in minutes for the writing utensils and stylish accessories you really need. They’ll all be good, they’ll all work.
Because with the drawer organizer tutorial above, you’ll be able to create the desk system that’s right for you. It starts with your essentials, it’s tailored to your habits: it’s about you!
Tell us about your experience in the comments: how has this post helped you?
