My husband was recently out of town for 10 days. Being a single mom kept me busy, but I found the evenings and weekends very long. I used this time to tackle some home projects. I cleaned out the fridge and pantry. I cleaned the inside of the dishwasher (possibly the nastiest job ever). I put away the Halloween decorations and got out the Thanksgiving decorations. I washed the duvet cover. I grocery shopped. Several times. I decided the dog was no longer going to be allowed to eat poop outside, which meant he could only go out on the leash. You get the picture – it was a long 10 days.

A job that needed doing was my top desk drawer. I spend most of my time at my computer desk and my regular desk is mostly for storage and stacking. The only time I use it is to write bills. As a result, the center drawer was a hodgepodge of notepads, pens, paper clips, old insurance cards, rubber bands, and a few treasures. I tackled it on a Sunday afternoon, first emptying everything out.

I tested all the pens and threw out those that didn’t write (a surprising number!). The remaining pens went into two narrow plastic organizing trays.

I threw out the numerous business cards that were lurking. I purged the notepads tearing off pages that had been written on and throwing out those that were crumpled, ripped, or useless (like the pens, there was a surprising amount of junk). I did the same with the post-it notes. I stacked the notepads and post-its in an organized way so I will be able to grab them when I need them.

The paper clips were sorted by size (big and little) and placed in two paper clip holders (after I undid the paper clip necklace a child made at some point). The binder clips were placed at the front of the drawer. The rubber bands were removed and put in a plastic bag in another office drawer since I never use them. I gazed longingly online at some cute ways to organize all of this, but I don’t have room in my drawer for china teacups, muffin tins, or pottery bowls. The most efficient use of space was boring office paper clip holders!

I realized I have not one, not two, but three staple removers. Those got tucked in the front corner. I also have two rulers, which fit nicely against the front of the drawer.

I did discover a couple of treasures: several of those pennies you flatten in machines to be souvenirs of places you visit. I came across a wooden coin from a horse riding stable we visited in Colorado. And a very weird strand of beads I got as a product sample once: it’s supposed to be used a fertility/cycle tracker with different colored beads for different parts of the cycle. That one got stuck in another drawer: maybe someday there will be grandchildren who will want to play with some colored beads. I found the instruction manual for my office phone – maybe I can finally figure out how to change some of the settings!

I think I will now finally be able to find a pen, post-it or paper clip when I need it without a lot of digging.