Kenny's Tips: Recycled Materials

I have more photos of my drawers after cleaning and updating them. Added a scotch tape dispenser at the back of this one, which can come in handy (found it unused in the study room downstairs). Today, I shall continue sharing Kenny's Tips, covering: organization with recycled materials!

One thing I find super useful are boxes and little containers, such as those you might receive gifts in. I flatten the ugly cardboard ones and recycle them straightaway. But I've always kept a small collection of quaint lil' boxes, not knowing what to do with them. They could have been sentimental keepsakes, subconscious pillars, or worse still, signs of a hoarder to be born.

However, somewhere between ending my career in the university and beginning another in the hospital, I got inspired by sites like Workawesome, and got to creating a functional workspace for myself. And while trying to organize the first — and most accessible — drawer with the things I use most for work — stationery — it struck me that I could make use of the boxes to segment the space, so things don't just roll all over the place when I open and close my drawers. So I whipped the boxes out and worked them like a jigsaw puzzle, fitting pieces not meant to be together with each other.

I like that my stationery and organizational boxes don't look like a sterile minimalist set; they look like they were collected over time, over places. And within that pastiche are personal memories attached: the two clear plastic boxes at the left are from City Chain where my Dad bought my current K-Swiss watch; the two blue ones on the right housed a pair of Oakley sunglasses, given by my army peeps when I ORD-ed; some of the stationery, previously imprisoned in my box for sentimental stuff, like pencils, Hello Kitty eraser, one of the rulers, were given by classmates; other stationery were garnered all over the house, some I used since sec sch, jc, uni.

I like this idea of recycling materials for organization. They don't incur cost. I imbue them a sense of renewed purpose. Interestingly, while everyone at home used to hunt high and low for stationery in pockets of spaces all over the house where stationery could be, only to ask my mum, "where is the -insert tool- ar?" at the end of the day, nowadays, they just comes into my room, take it, use it, and put it back. I think this fits into one of my goals for Room domain: Every item in the room has a space where it belongs.

So I've shared some tools I use to support me through my journey towards awesomeness. What are some tips and tools you use?