This week – the utensil drawer. This is where stuff that won’t fit in the cutlery drawer goes. And it can get rather messy!

1. Lay out a towel on the kitchen floor.
2. Pull all of the stuff out of the drawer and sort it into like groups (ie “cutting” “scooping” “storing” “making” “decorating”) onto the towel
3. For each item, ask yourself:
   • How many of these do I have?
   • How often do I use it?
   • If I got rid of it, would I be able to find a way to still do what I need to do if the need arose (the answer is almost always YES – there is more than one way to skin a cat, as the old saying…rather grossly…puts it)
   • Will I use it again more than a couple of times a year?
   • Is it still in good working order?
   • Can I live without it (that’s me being facetious – unless you have a dialysis machine in there, of course can live without it).
   • Does my bestie/mother/sister/neighbour have one I can borrow if I do need it again one day?
   • Does it even belong in the kitchen? (there will be rubber bands, bits of broken toys, coasters, orphan bits of sets, the odd hair band, a few receipts, stamps, paper clips, bandaids or bobby pin and the like that should be re-home completely)
4. Cull everything that doesn’t make the cut
5. Put the rest back in the drawer in its groups.  You may need to use ziplock bags to group the small stuff together, and drawer dividers to keep it all from getting too jumbled again.

I would spend around 3 hours a week ironing, and I hated the ironing basket. It was always full and always there, staring at me and reminding me I had to do something I hated doing. However, I was compelled to iron because the clothes were always so creased. I could not conceive not ironing.

Then my life changed when we went on a 4-week family road-trip style holiday. We lived out of suitcases the whole time, frequently moving and therefore frequently packing and unpacking (and never hanging anything). I realized that we didn’t look all wrinkly all of the time, and that it wasn’t so bad, this No Ironing Thing.

So when we returned home, I repurposed my laundry basket (it’s now our shopping bag basket) and never looked back. I got hints from my best friend, who had some great ideas (thanks Kym!) on how to prevent creases, and I’ll share them with you now.

Firstly, I still try not to use the dryer. It doesn’t rain much where I live, so we dry outside on the clothesline most of the time. We do this to save on electricity usage, mainly – cheaper and more environmentally friendly. When I do, I just apply the same rules as below, essentially (except for the drip-drying).

- I set my spin speed on my washing machine to the lowest spinning speed that I can
- I often don’t spin at all (especially in summer) and instead drip-dry the clothes
- I give them a good shake when they come out of the machine and hang them on the line as soon as possible
- I smooth them out on the line and leave them as smooth as I can to dry
- I always peg socks together in their pairs (this isn’t an ironing tip but it saves time later)
- As I get them off the line, I put them in the basket in this order: undies, socks (paired immediately), sleepwear (folded), shorts & pants (folded), things that don’t crease (folded). Then finally I lay flat out over the top of the basket the clothes that usually crease a little like t-shirts dresses and shirts (hanging stuff).
- Once inside, I take the hanging clothes off the basket and lay them on the back of the couch. I put the most creased pieces on the bottom of the pile. I smooth them out individually as I add each one to the pile (sort of like ironing them with my hands)
- I put all the other stuff away in the wardrobes
- A few hours later I hang the hanging items – they have ironed themselves on the back of the couch (sometimes I lay them flat on the bed, too).

Sometimes I’ll get something out of the wardrobe to wear and it’s a little creased – so then I give it a quick iron, but this is rare.

I have also learned that your body heat will also smooth out wrinkles once you’ve had it on for a little while, too.

It’s also useful, of course, to buy clothes made from fabrics that don’t crease easily!

Finally, ditch your perfectionism – no one will notice, trust me! And you’ll be a changed person!