The way I’m approaching my mom’s kitchen organization
If I do say so myself, I am a master organizer. I have always been neat, but my particular set of skills is around building systems for decluttering and maintenance that stand the test of time. It’s one thing to organize your pantry with trendy bins and containers. It’s quite another to keep it that way.
My process doesn’t start with bins or containers or cute ceramic storage sets. It starts with understanding what’s working and what’s not.
For example, do you actually know the reason why your pantry gets so messy so quickly? Is it perhaps not because you’re a messy person, but because all the ingredients and snacks you reach for the most are hidden behind that weird sauce you never touch? Or does that gorgeous organizer actually make it really hard to reach inside, so everything just kind of tumbles out? Or maybe those lids are SUPER annoying to remove and put back on, so everything just kind of goes to waste.
You get the picture. Anyway, I start with talking through all of this. We get down to exactly what we want to avoid, and what we want to prioritize when it comes to a maintained, practical, realistic home system.
Right now, my mom is in the middle of a MASSIVE kitchen renovation, which includes basically gutting the entire space, installing a new stove and cabinetry, and establishing a new system. I’m helping her with the organization part of the process (obviously I get nowhere near a drill set) and here’s my exact plan.
Day 1: Review Process + Assess
Discuss what worked with the previous version and what didn’t. Dive into pain points that we want to avoid.
Draw a physical map of the kitchen on a big piece of paper (trust me on this one, it helps to understand where things actually are).
Based on the drawing, go through the process of different actions that happen every day in the kitchen. Our goal is to ascertain what how you spend your time in the kitchen on a daily basis, and this will inform where we put things and how we organize.
Make a list of what we need that is missing, if anything. Order items that day. I always start big and go small. So, bigger containers for cooking utensils, dry goods, coffee, etc, then move to smaller ones.
Day 2: Organize According To Your Day
Start moving everything back into the kitchen and put it in the corner or wherever there is space. This is to keep everything in one place while we organize. DO NOT START PUTTING THINGS AWAY YET. THIS IS A MISTAKE. WORK FROM YOUR MAP.
Start organizing according to your map where you planned your day. Most people start with a coffee station.
Day 3: Keep Going. Minimize Distractions.
Keep putting things where they belong.
If in doubt when it comes to an item, put it to the side.
Minimize distractions. We want to be close to the finish line at this point.
Assess what needs to be thrown away/donated based on what you set aside.