Conquering medicine clutter

I’m not proud, okay. Here’s a scary before photo of our medicine shelf.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve pulled out that tub and sorted our supplies – only to have them end up in chaos again within a month. Stuff gets thrown in instead of put back neatly; foil sleeves of tablets don’t get put back into boxes; empty boxes don’t get thrown out.

My tub system would’ve worked fine if it were just for me, but organising systems have to take into account the habits of other family members as well. And I happen to have a man who is messy. The day the good Lord handed out genes for neatness and organisation, my man was outta the workshop. (He was over in the other room where they were handing out good looks and business smarts and an extra dose of fun personality. You can’t win ’em all.)

The results of our Corner of Chaos?

– Items at the bottom of the pile and back of the shelf are inaccessible
– It takes longer to find what we need each time
– We waste time rummaging, which compounds the mess
– We can’t see what’s there, so we end up buying more of products we already have
– Our mess is encroaching on the rest of the shelf, which is where we store table linen
– Stuff gets knocked over while we reach for other stuff
– My left eyelid starts twitching every time I open the cupboard door.

Time to admit that we have a problem. So, instead of getting frustrated at my spouse’s inability to follow my system – it’s time for a new system.

To kick things off, I decided I needed to make better use of vertical space. (See all that wasted space above our current open-tub arrangement?)

So, I went shopping, armed with a tape measure.

I came home with a stash of these babies:

I then pulled everything out of the cupboard and broke the medicines down into categories of similar items.

Because those loose foil sleeves were the bane of my existence in the previous disaster “system”, I decided they needed a dedicated drawer of their own. My man is never going to put a sleeve back into a box. It just ain’t gonna happen. Work with it, girl, not against it.

Look at all that vertical space we’ve gained by using drawers – every inch is useable and accessible, all the way to the top. And no more stuff spilling onto my pile of table linen.

What’s that little box down on the left? Very astute of you to notice.

It’s another way of keeping the space functional. Instead of having to open and close drawers all the time for medicines we’re currently taking multiple times a day, those frequent-use items are kept in an open tub. Once we’re not using that item anymore, it goes back into the drawer.

I’m so happy with our new arrangement. We’ve been using it daily for over a month, and it still looks exactly the same as the day I set it up. And that, friends, is a miracle of divine proportions.

Hubby happily tosses his goods into a drawer, order reigns, and my left eyelid has finally stopped twitching.

How do you organise your medicines? Do you have any other interesting uses for stackable drawers?