Three Ways to De-Clutter Your Kitchen

One of the most complicated rooms to declutter is the kitchen. It has so many things in it, and it is used at least three times a day. Cleaning the kitchen every day is necessary. It is tough work to keep your kitchen clean, but once you start working on it, you would notice your productivity increase, when the kitchen is clutter-free. The effort will seem gratifying. You can start cleaning your kitchen by first bringing it to its normal state. Empty the dishwasher and clear the counters as you would on a typical day.

Before the work begins, remember to take things slowly. Do one portion of your kitchen one step at a time. Take three storage bags or boxes and label them as – Keep, Give Away/Sell, and Throw Away! Labeling can be the baby steps in cleaning your kitchen.

Let the work begin!

Clean Your Kitchen Cabinets

Take an empty bin, a trash bin, and all your cleaning materials with you. These will be your weapons in confronting kitchen cabinets that contain the unused and forgotten. The plan is to do the cabinets from top to bottom. First, remove everything that is inside, including the dividers and misplaced items. Wipe up the spills; remove all the dust and the debris that you can see inside. As you take one item after another, decide whether you should keep them, give them away, or throw them to the trash. Your kitchen should be functional, and it should only contain items that you would continuously use. After cleaning each cabinet, you’ll find that you still have so much space in your kitchen after you got rid of all the items that you don’t need.

Sort Your Kitchen Appliances

You may have spent hundreds of dollars on kitchen appliances that you realize won’t be useful for you in the long run. You may have two rice cookers, egg poachers, and juicers that you don’t use. It is essential to remember that storage space is very precious in the kitchen. If you have kitchen equipment that you don’t use even once in 30 days, then it’s time to let go of it. Don’t second thought yourself on it, and if it’s something you need, it wouldn’t have collected dust for a month, don’t you think?!

Don’t worry about letting go of your beloved appliances, and you can donate it to a charity or sell it. People also love to hoard pots and pans. Others may deem them as collectibles, so it’s pretty much acceptable, but when you compromise functionality for pots and pan that you accumulate, then it’s time to get rid of them. On the other hand, there are kitchen appliances and equipment that we use occasionally, do not throw away. These are essential kitchen equipment too, only that they are used not quite as often as the others. Set them aside. Allot a kitchen cabinet for all the rarely-used kitchen appliances to free up space from your countertops.

Organize Your Pantry

Pantry organization can be difficult. Most of us throw all our groceries inside our pantry after stocking up. And when it’s time to look for that can of soup you want to cook, you’ll regret having to toss everything in random places because you can’t seem to find it. Just like the kitchen cabinets, the first thing to do is to take everything out and clean the pantry starting from the highest shelf. Line up all the items on the floor and classify them.

Each person has his way of grouping the cans and the packs. But when you do that, remember to move things that are closer to the expiration date forward. It will let you remember to use them first. As you organize items on your pantry, you’ll realize that gathering your ingredients before cooking and looking for a particular food when you’re craving wouldn’t be as hard as it used to.

Decluttering your kitchen may take some time, and as most people would say, it’s more effective if you do it on your own. Try doing this, and you can tell that you can move and cook with ease in your kitchen when it’s clean and well-organized.