Today’s UnFucking: nightstand drawer
After shoveling up the bedside avalanche, I realized it was time to do something about the top of the nightstand. I wanted to keep things I use a lot on top of the nightstand for easy access, but I find it just becomes another dumping zone, it’s a bitch to dust, and half the shit ends up on the floor anyway when the cat jumps up there.
So today’s question: how hard would it be for me to open the drawer to get a pencil or hair band or hand lotion? I decided, probably not very. But the drawer has become a catch-all for random “little things” I pull out of my pockets or purse. Time to free the drawer.
Essential Tools:
• small cardboard jewelry boxes
• my trusty labeler
How to:
1: Pull out the whole drawer. (for drawers that don’t come out, I pull it all out indiscriminately into a box) Take everything off top of dresser. Add everything from top of nightstand into the mix (so I can REALLY figure out what I ACTUALLY need up top.)
1.5: Have mini anxiety attack over what to do with all this shit. Also feel like an old junkie, looking at all the migraine meds in the drawer.
2: Start making little piles of categories. Here were mine:
• meds
• spare glasses/reading glasses
• random electronics components (earbud covers, old iphone dock, remote control, etc.)
• pens/pencils/highlighters
• cat stuff (her nail clippers, old collar, laser pointer)
• personal care (lip balm, lotion, nail file, hair bands, etc.)
• shit that goes elsewhere
Happy me! I actually only had a few things in the “elsewhere” pile, so I put them away immediately (since I know what “I’ll do it later” means to me.) Spare glasses went in the dresser drawer with the other glasses/sunglasses and things (like swimsuits) I only occasionally wear. All but one pencil and highlighter went into the office where they belong, as did the electronics stuff (since I don’t use them in the bedroom.) Tossed the “just a little left” lip balms and lotions (reminding myself how grossly old they are.) The Beastable’s old collar went into the “nostalgia” box.
3. But the meds…oh the meds… First of all, I used to travel a lot for work, so I’d put a few of this and a few of that into an empty pill bottle for my suitcase. I’d do the same for my purse. Result: lots of bottles of god-knows-what in my nightstand drawer. Meds are expensive and I don’t have insurance, so I don’t like to throw away anything. But can I tell you the expiration dates on any of those unlabeled bottles? No. So I bit the bullet and tossed them all.
And then: Why don’t pharmacies have different sized bottles? Why must tiny sized or small quantity meds be in such big ugly bottles? This is why one of the things I will not part with are small containers and bottles. They’re useful and I’ve learned to keep them all in one gallon sized bin so they don’t add to the clutter. So I’m once again going the “travel-size-refill” method. I put tiny pills in small bottles and pills from large containers into smaller bottles AND LABELED THEM ALL with the name and expiration date. When I run out, I’ll just refill from the “toiletries” bin (kept in the storage closet.) But now my drawer will not be overflowing and I’ll know where my meds are and that they will actually work.
4. Now for the other thing I’ve hoarded and am glad to have done so: little jewelry boxes. They’re awesome for organizing drawers and keeping little things separated. So I grabbed my box o’ boxes and founds ones to fit the categories of items to go back in the drawer. I ended up with:
• meds
• personal care (with a tiny box inside the box for hair bands and bobby pins)
• writing instruments
• cat stuff
• one box in the back for important small random stuff (like mystery keys or a button from “something”)
5. Now the only things on top of my nightstand are the lamp, my UFML (UnFuck My Life) notebook, and a tray to keep the things I positively use every night before bed and every morning upon waking: hand creme, earplugs, meds, a tiny nail file, and space for my glasses so The Beastable doesn’t knock them to the ground in the middle of the night.
Now then…let’s see how long it lasts. ;)
ecstatic
