Keeping your kitchen clean can be a real challenge – it’s probably one of the most trafficked rooms in your house as a central location for cooking and gathering. Similar to laundry, sometimes it can seem like there’s always one more dish to be cleaned or one more thing to be put away.
That said, with some savvy organization skills and little bit of effort, you can make your kitchen a more convenient place where the impossible challenge of keeping everything clean and orderly becomes a little bit more manageable.
Categorize Your Pantry and Shelves
Even if you’re relentless about keeping the sink empty, your kitchen is likely home to a lot of different items – food, cutlery, dishes, etc. Organizing those items in a sensible fashion is the first step to making your kitchen a more resilient to messes. Making it easier to access items as they’re needed will result in fewer things being pulled out – and left – on the counters.
One smart tip? Organize your kitchen storage by your eating habits. Keep your cereal bowls and coffee mugs on one shelf, and your dinner plates and tumblers on another. Having a separate space for these items will prevent you from having to dig through your cabinets before each meal to assemble the items you need. Similarly, organize your pantry so that food items for different meal times are kept together. Baking goods, spices, etc. can take up one area, while bulk and pre-packaged snacks can go in another.
The easiest way to get everything organized, of course, is to pull it all out and start fresh. Remove everything from the shelves and spend some time with a disinfectant wipe or some all-purpose cleaner and a cloth to make sure the shelves are free from food debris and dust. Then reassemble your storage in a smart way – maybe even this next technique!
Make Your Dishwasher The Center Point
Nothing is more annoying than having to walk dishes across the length of your kitchen from the drying rack or dishwasher to their rightful storage space. If your dishes have a tendency to just stay in the rack until they’re used again, it might have something to do with the placement of their actual home.
Reorganizing your kitchen to make the dishwasher a central point can make a huge difference, especially when it comes to the items that you use every day. Working outward, store your dishes, cups, and cutlery nearby, placing items that you use the least in the furthest cabinets or on the highest shelves.
Keep Your Containers Uniform
Nothing lends itself more to an unkempt appearance than non-uniform storage methods. Keeping items in their original containers can be temptingly convenient, but in the long run it can be a detriment to your overall organization strategy.
Keeping your cereals in tall airtight containers, for example, can make them easier to put together in a way that makes sense and becomes an easy habit to keep. The same goes for bulk snacks like nuts, granola, etc. And these containers have the added bonus of keeping your food fresher, longer.