Originally published on The Junk Pyramid.

I have a friend who reads The Junk Pyramid and is congratulatory to me on it. But I think she wonders why I am decluttering the locations that I am. When I cleaned off the top of my file cabinet in my Secret Closet, she sarcastically said something to the effect of, “Oh, that’s going to change your life.” It was less jerky than that, but had a similar sentiment.

This one’s for her.

Check. This. Out.:

That’s my battery drawer. And it was a disaster. I had planned on doing some more kids clothes today, but this voice changing toy was out of batteries and I made the mistake of putting a new battery in it.

Then Quinn ran around yelling into it. And just FYI, if a toy is soooo annoying that even the six-year-old is yelling, “Go away!” you know you shouldn’t have bothered to put batteries back in it. Thanks for that present, Nana.

And on a related note, am I the only person in the world who is physically incapable of attaching a 9-volt battery to those little connectors in the battery compartment of toys?

Anywho…

When I opened the battery drawer and saw what you see above, I knew that this particular drawer was screaming to be decluttered.

For something called a battery drawer, there sure were a lot of non-battery items in there. (And yes, I am aware that I have a ridiculous number of batteries. I’m kind of crazy that way. We buy them at Costco.)

This was all the detritus from the drawer that I was able to get rid off:

Most of it is trash. Like that incredibly malformed battery there in front. I don’t know how that happened, but I had to have applied a lot of force to do that to a triple A.

I have no idea how to count the number of items I’m getting rid of on this one, but because I considered this day’s decluttering to be a smashing success, I’m going to count it as six. (That puts my total at 505. I’m way ahead of schedule. Yay for me!)

In the drawer itself, I used some little plastic containers to consolidate all the tiny, weird-shaped batteries used for watches and cameras and whatnot. I also used a container for adhesives and safety pins. The double A batteries also got their own container.

Here is my finished product:

Now I can open and close that drawer without having to reach in and shove something down with my hand. I know you know what I’m talking about.

I’m putting this one down in the “actually improved my life” category.

Editors Pick by Catnip from Catnip and Coffee: I’ve been a huge fan of Stimey’s blogs for a long time. All of her posts speak to me, but this one with her humorous take on one little change gives me hope for dealing with my own cluttered drawers! Stimey can be found at both The Junk Pyramid, where she documents her ongoing process of decluttering her home, and at her main blog, Stimeyland. You can subscribe to The Junk Pyramid here.