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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip is to create an other category. Doing so can

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Speaker 1: make organizing a lot simpler and faster. My family moved

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Speaker 1: earlier this year, and I spent weeks unpacking. The kitchen

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Speaker 1: was particularly tedious, and only the rather urgent need to

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Speaker 1: find my pots and pans kept me going. I spend

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Speaker 1: a lot of time deliberating over questions like whether a

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Speaker 1: vegetable peeler belongs in the knife drawer or the utensil's

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Speaker 1: drawer or somewhere else, and where to store napkin rings,

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Speaker 1: which we don't really use but have, and where to

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Speaker 1: put various things that aren't actually kitchen items but that

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Speaker 1: you sometimes need while you're in the kitchen. But most

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Speaker 1: flummoxing was all the random stuff that was in our

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Speaker 1: kitchen boxes. When you live in a house for a decade,

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff winds up in drawers and in

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Speaker 1: piles in your kitchen, and so a box labeled kitchen

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Speaker 1: might very well have small toys and other random things

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Speaker 1: like a broken cup shaped like a dinosaur that can't

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Speaker 1: actually be used, but can't be thrown away lest the

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Speaker 1: child with an affinity for it see it in the trash.

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Speaker 1: What made unpacking possible was creating a junk drawer. And

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Speaker 1: I don't even mean what most people think of as

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Speaker 1: a kitchen junk drawer, which might have pencils, a scissors,

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Speaker 1: rubber bands, spare change, and other such small items. I

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Speaker 1: have a drawer for those. Let's call that junk drawer

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Speaker 1: number one. I am talking the truly random stuff I

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Speaker 1: was pulling out of boxes. I couldn't really put it

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Speaker 1: back in the boxes, because then it would block other

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Speaker 1: stuff from coming out of the boxes, or I would

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Speaker 1: still have boxes sitting there in my eating space. So

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Speaker 1: I created an other drawer, we could call it junk

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Speaker 1: drawer number two, for anything that didn't have a clear

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Speaker 1: and appropriate home anywhere. Suddenly, the question where does this

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Speaker 1: go became a lot less stressful because I could answer

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Speaker 1: myself or a younger helper by saying, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: so put it in that bottom drawer over there. Once

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Speaker 1: I had a drawer for this big category of other

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Speaker 1: unpacking went more quickly. I could efficiently get the rest

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Speaker 1: of the kitchen a lot less junkie. Creating an other

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Speaker 1: category can be helpful in many contexts when we designate

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Speaker 1: a spot where anything can go everywhere else can be

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Speaker 1: a lot more orderly. Another category is a great technique

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Speaker 1: when organizing physical spaces, especially areas like kitchens, offices, and

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Speaker 1: kids rooms where there is a fair amount of stuff

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Speaker 1: that defies classification. An other category can be useful in

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Speaker 1: a household budget too. COVID tests parking tickets, the impulse

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Speaker 1: purchased at a charity auction. If you know where those

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Speaker 1: items belong in your budget, great, If not, put them

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Speaker 1: in other it's a junk drawer. Longtime listeners will have

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Speaker 1: heard my encouragement to batch the little things. That means

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Speaker 1: to designate a time each week for doing all the

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Speaker 1: various tasks that need to be done but don't fit

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Speaker 1: neatly somewhere else in your schedule. Batching little things is

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Speaker 1: the time equivalent of a junk drawer or an other category.

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Speaker 1: I pay bills, respond to invitations and fill out forms

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Speaker 1: in one fell swoop on Friday afternoons. So the next

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Speaker 1: time you are spending way too much time and mental

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Speaker 1: energy deliberating about how to categorize something, embrace the genius

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Speaker 1: of the junk drawer. The paradox is that by creating

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Speaker 1: one seemingly unorganized space, everything else can be more orderly,

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Speaker 1: certainly more orderly and in less time than if you

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Speaker 1: insisted on absolutely everything having a category or place. We

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Speaker 1: all need junk drawers in our lives. It is really

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Speaker 1: the best way to be workably organized in the meantime.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making

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Speaker 1: the most of our time.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you. You can

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Speaker 2: send me your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just

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Speaker 2: connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before

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Speaker 2: rec pod that's b E the number four, then Breakfast

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Speaker 2: p o D. You can also shoot me an email

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Speaker 2: at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before

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Speaker 2: Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much.

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Speaker 2: Should I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast

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Speaker 2: is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

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Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.