COOKING UP A PLAN
Organizing In The Kitchen
The kitchen is an area of your home which gets used more often than most other areas. It stands to reason, that if your kitchen were more organized and simple to use, that your life would feel easier. Here are ten easy steps to organize your kitchen, and make family life flow more smoothly when it comes to meal preparation.
1. Pull everything out of each cabinet and go through it. Discard or donate those things which aren?t frequently used, duplicate items, broken items, or things you forgot you had. Do this with each cabinet and drawer, setting up separate areas on the floor for each group. Be ruthless. Most kitchens are short on storage space, so the goal is to only have things you love and use.
2. After your cabinets are all empty, consider what is best for you in terms of how to group items. Sort all your baking items and pile them together. Sort your cooking items and pile them together. Group the dishes you eat from, glassware, holiday or other seasonal items that only get used once or twice a year, as well as those special entertaining or serving pieces that are only used occasionally.
3. Now that you have groups laid out on the floor, decide what space makes the most sense for them to live. Cooking and baking pieces should be kept close to where you do food preparation. Cooking utensils should be in the drawer nearest to the food preparation area as well. Glassware might be best near the sink or refrigerator. Make a coffee or tea station where you have the coffee and tea, sugar, mugs, and filters, and try to place it near the water source. This way you avoid going back and forth across the kitchen for the things you need just to make your morning beverage. Storing things where they are used and with the other items they are used along with, helps to simplify things.
4. Containerize inside your cabinets. Group together packets of sauce mixes, gravy mixes, hot cereal packets, hot cocoa envelopes, and put them into small plastic containers to avoid them being scattered all over the cabinet. Use clear plastic shoeboxes to store food that is in tiny boxes such as Jell-O or pudding mix.
5. Discard containers without lids and store the remaining plastic containers either with the lids on them, or store the lids in another larger container so they all stay together. Do the same with the lids for your pots and pans. A large clear plastic box will keep them nicely together and on their sides, or get a wire rack that will also store them on their sides in the cabinet.
6. Use vertical space. Place hooks under cabinets to hold mugs above the countertop, or hang a stemware rack in the same spot for wine glasses, which will free up a lot of space in the cabinet above. Hang adhesive hooks on the inside of cabinet doors or pantry doors to hold tools such as measuring cups, oven mitts, or other kitchen gadgets. Consider using wall space or a ceiling rack to hang functional items such as pots and pans. Remember that any space you can use to hang something will free up flat space inside a cabinet.
7. Use lazy susans (turntables) to hold things such as oils, vinegars, and other cooking ingredients, as well as spices, vitamins or medications. You can also use a few lazy susans in your refrigerator. One will keep beverages, so nothing ever hides in the back to spoil or freeze, and use one on another shelf to keep leftovers or small jars of pickles, olives, or other small food items.
8. Get some drawer dividers for your cooking utensil drawers and your ?junk drawers?. Everyone needs a place to keep those little miscellaneous things, but they don?t have to be overflowing and junky. Drawer dividers will allow you to assign a little spot for each thing and you?ll be able to find things when you need them.
9. Get a magnetic sorter box to hang on the side of the fridge for coupons, takeout menus, a notepad and pen, and other papers that tend to accumulate on the countertops. Each type of paper should have its own section in the sorter.
10. Keep trash bags near the trashcan and throw a stack of loose bags into the bottom of the can. That way, when you pull out one bag, there is already another one right below it waiting to be used. If you put your trash out at the curb one night a week, use that time to clean out your refrigerator each week too. Peek in there and see what food needs to be pitched, throw it out, and then take the trash out to the curb immediately after. If you do the cleaning out weekly, you?ll find that your refrigerator will stay current and you?ll never have a whole shelf being taken up by old moldy food.
Your personal work style will determine where you store and use the items in your kitchen, but the goal is to get that room and its contents to be serving your needs as smoothly and efficiently as possible. If you invest the time and energy into decluttering and organizing your kitchen, it is an investment that will pay off in happiness for years to come.
Monica Ricci has been an organizing specialist since 1999, and her motivational presentations teach effective organizing and simplifying techniques for home and work. She also offers free email tips and ideas on how to make life simpler and more organized. Her topics include clutter control, paper management, time management, organizing space and procrastination.Contact Monica at 770-569-2642 or Monica@CatalystOrganizing.com.
TEACHING CHILDREN TO ORGANIZEMonica RicciTeaching Children To Organize
Organizing is something that many people are born with, yet those who aren?t need not despair. Organizing is a LEARNED SKILL and one that kids and adults alike can pick up at any time. Here are some ways to organize a kid?s room, and teach the principles of organizing at the same time.
OLD FRIENDS
If the child has a lot of stuffed animals that he/she has outgrown?but just isn?t ready to part with yet?use a HAMMOCK or a net that hangs way up in the corner of the ceiling. The toys can be put up there and they can still be seen but they are out of the way.
SETTING UP CATEGORIES
Kids can organize their toys by category (cars and trucks together, dolls together, specific types of games together, etc) in big bins or baskets. If the child can read, LABEL the bins to help them remember which bins are for which category. LIDS are usually too much for kids to deal with, so get containers without lids, or store the lids elsewhere for when the kids aren?t using the bins anymore.
GET IN THE ZONE
Set up ?zones? in the room for DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES?art & craft zone, reading zone, puzzle zone, and a large play area to play with blocks and whatnot. Get the appropriate TOOLS for each zone, such tables for the child to work at in the art and craft zone, shelves for puzzles and games in that zone, and a comfy chair and a bookshelf in the reading zone.
GO UP
Because kids need a good amount of floor space to play in, use the WALL SPACE for storage. Hanging sturdy shelves or wall bins at a height that can be reached by the kids, clear plastic wall pockets, or stacked milk crates work well for kids to do their own organizing. Container Store is great for shelves if you have one in your area. Their Elfa shelving system is totally ADJUSTABLE, so when the kids grow taller, just snap out the shelves, and snap them in higher up on the tracks! It?s the only shelving system I use with my clients, and I love it.
A HOME FOR EVERYTHING
Teach kids the benefit of CONTAINERIZING items by category or by the activity that required?for example, things you build, things you read, things to draw with/on, or toys with wheels. Teach them how organizing makes their things easier to find. So much of what we call clutter is just stuff that has no home, and even kids can ASSIGN homes to all their stuff and be taught how to put things away when they?re finished.
DRESSING IN A SNAP
For kids clothing, install shelving in their closets that they can reach and use lots of hooks and HANGING SPACE. If kids clothes are in a folded pile or in a drawer, they are more likely to just wear what?s on top, rather than looking through the pile, so hang as much as possible.
DISPLAYING THEIR ARTWORK
Hang a clothesline along one wall of the child?s room, a few feet down from ceiling level, and use CLOTHESPINS to display artwork that kids bring home from school. Once it?s been displayed, if the child can?t part with it, use clear UNDERBED containers for longer-term storage.
Kids can be taught organizing concepts and tactics, which will serve them well through school and into their adult years. And who knows?with their creative little minds working, you might learn something new about organizing from them!
Monica Ricci has been an organizing specialist since 1999, and her motivational presentations teach effective organizing and simplifying techniques for home and work. She also offers free email tips and ideas on how to make life simpler and more organized. Her topics include clutter control, paper management, time management, organizing space and procrastination.Contact Monica at 770-569-2642 or Monica@CatalystOrganizing.com.