I can’t believe I’m going to share a picture of my kitchen drawer with you, but whenever I come across an organizing tip that actually works, it’s hard to resist sharing the news. My sister gave me the idea, which she got from a book about organizing your stuff. I think it might have been The life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondō.

Downsizing and organizing seem to be popular themes these days. For the past month, I’ve been watching my recently retired neighbor hall things from her basement to either the trash or a pile destined for Goodwill. On the other side of me a neighbor unloaded some tomato cages, two of which I gladly took. There are entire podcasts devoted to convincing you to get rid of stuff.

Generally, the rule here is “Don’t let it in the house.” But swept up in the celebration of the team’s new logo, I caved and took a free Timberwolves t-shirt that was shoved into my hands on the way out of the arena. It wasn’t a good color for me. I didn’t like the cut. Was it supposed to be a souvenir? Fortunately I have some neighbors who are Wolves fans and they were happy to take the shirt and some other souvenirs. Basically we’re just trading stuff over here.

Another trick is to “Use things up.” When you get that candle on Christmas Day, get the matches out. Light it. Enjoy it every day until it’s gone. If you save it, pretty soon you’ll have two candles and then three. People will get the idea that you collect candles. Then you’ll get even more until you won’t live long enough to burn them all. So use the lotion. Eat the candy. Drink the wine. If it’s not for you, give it away right away. I mean, nobody wants a box of half eaten candies or a candle that was lit once and then stored where it collected dust until it came time for your estate sale.

For the stuff you do keep. Put it away. Even if it’s ultimately a contained mess like my kitchen drawer with the food storage containers, having a place to put things is a start. Until recently, I saw no reason to improve this isolated chaos. It was easy to toss things in willy-nilly and not such a big deal to fish things out as needed.

But when my sister mentioned this storage method where you store things vertically, I wondered if would work for this drawer. I arranged things and it worked great. The real test would be whether the system could more or less maintain itself. After having used this organizing tip for several months now, I’m hooked. It works for socks. It works for t-shirts (should you collect too many freebies). Towels. It works great. It also indicates when it’s time to recycle deli containers I might save. If it doesn’t fit, it’s out. Not wedged in. Not off into an auxiliary storage area. Out.

So here you have it folks.

My kitchen drawer.

My kitchen drawer. The container lids are stacked vertically in a shoe box.