Peace of Mind Organizing

November tiny projects challenge: Day 1

18 November 2020

Today I focused on the little drawer in my laptop stand. My laptop sits on a stand on my desk to my right, while I use a larger external monitor as my main focus. I bought the leather-covered stand from Levenger years ago. I think its original intent was to place books on for easy reading. (It may predate laptops!) I purchased it for a place to keep my planner open and available at all times.

Here’s a photo of the laptop stand so you can visualize what I’m talking about.

The laptop stand has a drawer that comes out the side where I store office supplies I want close at hand, since my IKEA desk doesn’t have any drawers. I use this drawer every day, but I hadn’t actually decluttered and organized it in my years. (Evidence of that: I found cat hair and bits of cat claws. My cat died in 2013.) Because so much stuff was crammed into it, it would sometimes get stuck when I tried pulling it out. This was a fun and easy tiny project to contemplate.

Here’s as picture of the drawer before I started.

I took the items out one by one onto the desk and sorted them as I went. The categories included the things I use most, the things I never use, and things I have duplicates of. I also had categories like pens, rubber bands, paper clips, binder clips, sticky notes (I found some nice ones I didn’t remember!) and trash.

Here’s a photo of all the stuff sorted on the desk.

It was a no-brainer to get rid of the stuff I never use, like all three letter openers (!), the booklets of sticky notes and the keyboard cleaning tool I bought on impulse in the stocking stuffer section of The Container Store years ago. I put just four of the writing instruments back in the drawer, and placed the sticky notes in the order of frequency of use. I was in my happy place doing this.

Here’s the after photo.

It took me all of 20 minutes to accomplish this project and I’m tickled pink. Since I open this drawer daily, it will have a big impact. I’m thrilled that it will no longer get stuck and that I won’t have to push stuff around to find what I’m looking for. Definitely 20 minutes well spent!

Tagged with: 15 minutes, desk, office supplies, organizing, tiny projects

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