Decluttering Drawers: Bedroom

[rachelmanija]

Learning how to fold things so they are in horizontal rows rather than vertical stacks is definitely the point where this tipped over into "hobby." However, it does make stuff WAY easier to find.

These are before-and-after aerial shots of my T-shirt drawer:

Comments

[sholio]

That looks fantastic! Though I suspect the aspect where that would fall apart for me -- long-term, anyway -- is that sorting and hanging/putting away my laundry (as opposed to, say, procrastinating and leaving it in the dryer forever) is ALREADY a bit of an organizational challenge. Adding an extra 20 minutes of folding would probably result in laundry storage moving to some handy horizontal surface near the dresser in the hopes that someday it will move into the drawers on its own.

I can see the appeal, though.

[rachelmanija]

Ha! I fold things anyway - the chaotic state of my drawers previously was due to everything getting tossed around while I rummaged for the thing I wanted - so for me it doesn't add any extra time. Except for re-folding everything just this once.

You need a laundry brownie.

[sholio]

You need a laundry brownie.

YES I DO. Let me know if you know the appropriate offerings to attract one.

[rachelmanija]

I believe a saucer of milk next to the laundry hamper is traditional. If you do get one, whatever you do, don't gift them with a wee set of clothes.

[green_knight]

Anecdata:

I'm more likely to fold-and-put-away than I was to pick up a stack and transfer it wholesale, and the time it takes is maybe five minutes. (I fold on the clothes dryer, so there's a good workflow for me).

I started folding out of sheer orneryness: I asked myself 'what if I stopped whinging about how fucking ridiculous this system is and how it will never work and just FOLD MY CLOTHES THIS ONCE TO TRY IT?' Two years later, I'm still doing it.

Turns out, the time I save by picking the right shirt for any occasion, and knowing whether I need to do a particular batch of laundry by eyeballing my clothes drawers more than makes up for folding time.

[sholio]

I'm glad that works for you!

My own experience is that I, too, have tried folding. It results in either a wad of clothes being stuffed into wherever the folded clothes go, to be folded later (read: never), or the clothes being left in the dryer forever.

My current system, which involves making a neat stack of flat clothing while sorting and then laying it sideways in the drawer, works great for me: it's fast, I can see everything at a glance (... ish, I do have to move them a bit to see what's in the back), and for whatever reason the extra 2 seconds saved per item, or whatever, of laying them neatly out flat instead of folding them makes the difference to my hindbrain in actually doing it vs. not doing it.

It's good to figure out what works best for you, though!

[green_knight]

Hurray for finding a system that works. (Turning the stack sideways never occurred to me, so I'm filing it away in case I might need a reminder of 'hey, there's yet another way of doing this'.)