This week I was able to finally minimize and organize my medicine cabinet. My dear husband has had five surgeries in the last 18 months and that cabinet was stuffed with old prescriptions, discharge instructions, expired medicines, etc. It needed attention badly. So here is my method when I'm minimizing an area such as this medicine cabinet:
First, I pull everything out of the area. I take this opportunity to clean the shelves with antibacterial spray.
I then place each item into a like category. I changed these categories a few times based on the items I had. You don't want the categories to be too narrow or broad or you'll have too many or too few items in each category. The idea is to group like with like so you can see what you have excess of. I just used my kitchen counters as space for this part. If I saw things I knew didn't belong in my medicine cabinet, I took them to the area in the house where they did belong. If I saw things I knew I wanted to throw out or donate, I moved them to the trash, recycling, or donate box immediately as well.
Once I have all the items in categories, I go through each item in each category and get rid of anything not needed, unwanted, duplicated, or expired. Everyone is different. We have pets so I had a huge category of pet medication. It's the entire third shelf! You may not have pets so you won't have that category. The important part at this step is to let go of anything you don't need. I was really surprised at how much I got rid of. I'm sure you will be too.
Once the minimizing is done, I went on the hunt for any storage boxes or containers I might have around the house that could be repurposed for this medicine cabinet. The square miscellaneous medications box is an old Tupperware piece that I bought for a few cents at a garage sale. When I got home, I noticed the lid had a crack in it so it is no longer air tight. However, it's perfect for the medicine cabinet! I like to try whenever possible to use containers I already have and not buy anything new. I saw what categories fit in what containers and what containers fit on each shelf. I adjusted accordingly and then made labels for each container so I could clearly see what was where.
Once you have everything clean, minimized, categorized, and your containers are labeled, put what you have left back into the medicine cabinet using whatever organizational strategy makes the most sense to you. In my case, I separated my daily medicine from my husband's daily medicine and made those the easiest to access since we use them every day. I put the pets' medicines up on the top shelf since we don't usually get into that but once a month for their heartworm treatment. I made sure to put the heartworm medicine up front so I can get to it easily. Remember, the key to this organizational step is to make things easy to access. After all, you'll have less stress on a daily basis if you can always find and easily get to what you need the most.
When you choose to tackle an area in your home like this to minimize and organize, be sure you are in the right mood and have ample time to complete the entire task. Make it fun and relaxing by playing music and/or burning your favorite candle. Try not to get distracted and focus on only that one area right now. When you're done, take a second to look at the difference you made and how you feel about your accomplishment. Use the newly organized area for a few days and make adjustments as necessary to make it as user friendly as possible.
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