Organize Your Kitchen Drawer

1. Brew Some Coffee: This is a perfect task for Saturday morning, before the rest of the household is up.

2. Dump Everything Out: Spread the contents of the drawer on a countertop or table. Group together tools of similar function. Discard any junk. Scrub out the drawer, and let it air-dry.

3. Sort and Cull Tools: Set aside duplicates, keeping the rest. Cull stocking-stuffer gadgets you simply never use.

4. Consider an Organizer: A beauty like the Hafele Cutlery Tray (shown in the after shot, $135) comes in four widths.

Keep two sets of spoons—one for wet ingredients, one for dry. Cups are only for dry, so one set is plenty.

After 5,000 corkscrew inventions, this classic is still great—opens beer bottles, too.

Fish spatula: also fine for cookies. A silicone spatula does double duty, on nonstick or not.

Silicone tip tongs work with delicate nonstick pans and hot grills.

A simple citrus reamer is perfect for a quick juicing—almost zero cleanup.

We should all use meat thermometers more often. Digital is great, but a simple manual one works fine.

A peeler for every job: regular (potatoes), serrated (tomatoes), and julienne (carrots).

A sturdy pair of kitchen shears is worth buying if you don’t have one.

For some reason, we tend to accumulate spatulas. Two will do.

It disrespects the Zen of the drawer to clutter it with orphaned bits and pieces. Zero tolerance!