I hung a shelf in my living room and spent the next twenty minutes vacuuming fine white dust off every surface within six feet of the hole. The TV. The couch. Inside the PlayStation vents. Drywall dust is the glitter of home improvement — it gets everywhere and you find it for weeks.

Then a contractor buddy showed me a trick so simple I was genuinely annoyed I hadn’t thought of it. A magnet, a plastic bag, and a sticky note. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

How the magnet bag trick works

Take a plastic sandwich bag. Put a strong magnet inside it — one of those little neodymium disc magnets, the silver ones that feel weirdly heavy for their size. Fold a sticky note in half and stick it to the outside of the bag, right where the magnet is. The sticky note faces the wall when you drill.

When you drill into drywall, the dust falls straight down. The magnet holds the bag against the wall so it stays put, and the sticky note creates a little shelf that catches the dust before it hits the floor. Poke a small hole in the bottom of the bag for the drill bit if you need to get right up against the wall.

It’s not perfect — you’ll still get a few specks. But instead of a blizzard of white powder covering your floor, you get a neat little pile inside the bag. Empty the bag into the trash when you’re done.

Other ways to catch the dust (ranked)

The envelope method: tape an envelope to the wall under your drill point. Works fine but the tape can pull paint off. The vacuum method: hold a vacuum hose near the drill with your third hand that you do not have. The cup method: drill through the bottom of a disposable cup pressed against the wall. This actually works well for ceiling holes.

Best for wall holes: magnet bag. Best for ceiling holes: cup over the drill bit. Best when drilling lots of holes: get a drill dust collector attachment — they’re like fifteen bucks and worth every cent if you’re mounting more than a couple things.

What I used to do (do not do this)

I used to just let the dust fall and vacuum after. This is fine if you enjoy vacuuming your ceiling fan and dusting every book on your bookshelf. Drywall dust is so fine it goes airborne and settles on horizontal surfaces you didn’t even know you had.

Also: do not blow the dust away with your mouth. Learned this the hard way. Drywall dust in the eyes is a special kind of miserable and it takes about twenty minutes of blinking into a sink to feel normal again.

• Wall holes: Magnet + plastic bag + sticky note shelf
• Ceiling holes: Disposable cup over the drill bit
• Lots of holes: Drill dust collector attachment (~$15)
• Never: Just let it fall and vacuum later (dust goes airborne)