Does This Clean Drawer Make Me Look Thinner?

Recently I saw that Peter Walsh, the organization guru, had a new book out, Cut the Clutter, Drop the Pounds. The premise of the book is that if you are disorganized you are gaining weight, but being clutter free helps you lose weight. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that if you write a book and tie the title to losing weight you are more likely to sell the book. Peter has obviously had luck with this before because two of his previous books are Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat, and, Lighten Up – That one does not even sound like an organization book, just a diet one.

I love Peter Walsh and all his organizing tips, but I can’t imagine that his books vary that much from one to the next. Don’t keep too much crap, only keep crap you actually use, keep like-crap together and keep your crap organized in a way that you can see how much crap you have. But now that he says that if you are organized you will lose weight I took as a sign to finally organize my bedside table drawer.

Actually I’ve had it on my list of crap to do for a long time so I just wanted to get something other than needlepoint actually done today. I have a one small drawer in my bedside table that had not been cleaned out in at least ten years.

I opened it as much as I could, which was only three inches and started pulling out the few things I use all the time, glasses, nail scissors, Emory board, needle and thread, then I remembered that last year I had bought a bunch of bamboo boxes to use to as drawer organization holders. Luckily they were right where I had left them the day I purchased them.

I started grouping things together in the little boxes, dental floss and lip balm in one box, scissors in another, nail clippers and files in another. Once I had freed a few things from the drawer I was able to open it a little further, spare buttons from clothes I had long since given away, foreign coins from countries I have not been to in fifteen years, a life times amount of safety pins, pens from motel chains that have gone bankrupt. I started throwing things away and eventually filled half a trash bag and eight little organizational boxes.

I cleaned the drawer and placed the boxes, which amazingly happened to fit perfectly. The drawer closed easily and I looked at the giant amount of trash. How did it all fit in that one little drawer? I went and got on the scale. I weighed exactly the same amount I did in the morning. How many days of cleaning and how many closets and drawers is it going to take for me to weigh less? Well at least I got to cross my oldest “to do” item off, only 985 more things to go.