The Classic Organizing Tool I Mistakenly Overlooked

Welcome to Your No-Sweat Guide to Spring Cleaning, a month-long series that puts the fun (yep, for real!) back into cleaning. We’re talking spruce-ups that take less than five minutes, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that hacks, and hands-off cleaning tasks that basically…do themselves—plus our trustiest tools and helpers. The goal: clean less, go outside more.

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We write, edit, and publish a lot of organizing content here at Home52... it’s kind of our bread and butter (besides, of course, bread and butter). Even in the off hours, I find myself following organizer after organizer on Instagram, saving DIY organizing hacks on Pinterest—even resorting to re-shuffling my sock drawer at 11pm instead of going to bed. It’s kind of a lifestyle, I suppose.

That said, we’ve likely seen just about everything tip, trick, and never-been-done-before product in the organizing space thus far. Does this mean we’re always organized? Absolutely not. Actually, I am slightly embarrassed about some of the spots in my home that are less than neat, which also tend to be the areas that get the most use.

My nightstand, for instance, is a disaster zone of cables, pillow sprays, pill bottles, and remotes. My kitchen junk drawer is full of… junk. And, I somehow can’t seem to part with the baskets of half-used shampoo and body wash containers in my closet. But the biggest organizing thorn in my side? It’s actually my bedroom dresser.

So, I have a good chunk of my clothing in my closet—blouses, dresses, jackets, etc., and what falls into the dresser are mostly T-shirts, sweats, bed linens, socks, and underwear. I’m sure you know from experience that a collection of tees and a pileup of socks can quickly become unruly after a couple trips to the laundromat. Each time I come home with laundry, I have less motivation to roll them up and section them off into zones.

Gee, I wonder what might help with that?

Um, drawer dividers. I know, some of you are probably shaking your heads, having long-been drawer-divider owners. I never really thought I needed them, since I always had grand plans of keeping my dresser drawers just so, but as with anything else, frequent use and life got in the way.

My linen drawer was the first to get tackled, and boy did this change the game. I no longer have to shake open what I thought to be a flat sheet to discover it’s actually a duvet cover, or even worse… a fitted sheet that needs refolding. I also have my pillowcases neatly tucked into one section, so I can easily swap them out more frequently.

My tees are now categorized into oversized sleep shirts and ones that can be worn out of the house, my socks are separated by season (goodbye for the year, wool!), and my covered-in-paint clothes are tucked in the back of the drawer in favor of my more fashionable loungewear. I don’t know what took me so long to physically divide my drawers (instead of operating with imaginary boundaries that always collapsed), but I’m so glad I finally did.

Do you use drawer dividers in your home? Tell us how you like 'em below!