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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is to create an other category. Doing so

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: a vegetable peeler belongs in the knife drawer or the

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Speaker 1: utensils 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: flammixing 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 less 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 for 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 physic coal spaces, especially areas like kitchens, offices,

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

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Speaker 1: stuff that defies classification. Another 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. Long time listeners will

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: is the time equivalent of a junk drawer or an

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Speaker 1: other category. I pay bills, respond to invitations, and fill

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Speaker 1: out forms, and one fell swoop on Friday afternoons. So

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Speaker 1: the next time you are spending way too much time

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Speaker 1: and mental energy deliberating about how to categorize something, embrace

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

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Speaker 1: by creating one seemingly unorganized space, everything else can be

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Speaker 1: more orderly, certainly more orderly and in less time. Then

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Speaker 1: if you insisted on absolutely everything having a category or place,

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

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Speaker 1: really 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. Hey, everybody, I'd love to

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Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,

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Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast to pop that's b E

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Speaker 1: the number four, then breakfast p o D. You can

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Speaker 1: also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at

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Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with

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Speaker 1: all the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to

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Speaker 1: staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit

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