If we were to open up your kitchen cabinets, what would we find? Would we immediately be hit with an avalanche of unmatched container components? If so, don’t feel bad. You’re simply like most people, with cabinets that are overfilled and unorganized.
So what measures can you take to declutter and reorganize your kitchen cabinets?
Consider Expanding Your Available Space
One possible solution is to expand your available space. If you install more kitchen cabinets, drawers, and other organization tools, you’ll be able to house more of your possessions, keep them better organized, and allow for more space in between those possessions. Just be cautious; sometimes, expanding your range of storage options simply incentivizes you to acquire more possessions to fill them.
If you’re running out of room in your main kitchen, consider adding an outdoor kitchen. Installing an outdoor kitchen is more affordable than you might think, and it has the potential to change your life for the better – beyond simply giving you more cabinet space. You’ll have more opportunities to cook and socialize outdoors, and you’ll even boost your home value on top of that.
Take Inventory
Next, spend some time taking inventory so you can evaluate how many possessions you truly have and how much cabinet space is available to you. Once you have a better high-level understanding of what’s going on in your kitchen, you’ll be in a much better position to make decisions about how to organize those materials. This is also a great opportunity to identify especially problematic areas, such as the junk drawer that always overflows, hard to reach cabinets that wind up empty, and certain possessions that aren’t really useful but are always in the way.
Get Rid of What You Haven’t Touched in a Year
One of the most commonly followed rules in decluttering is to get rid of anything you haven’t used or thought about in over a year. It’s a solid rule of thumb because if you haven’t seen or thought about a specific possession in over a year, you’re probably not going to miss it once it’s gone. This accounts for seasonal items, which you might only use once or twice a year, and helps you identify all the tools and gadgets you use more frequently.
You can get rid of these possessions in a variety of ways, such as by selling them, donating them, recycling them, or simply throwing them away. All that really matters is that they’re no longer taking up space in your kitchen.
Set Aside What You Don’t Touch Every Week
After you’re done with that, set aside everything that you don’t touch on a weekly basis. Your dishes, silverware, commonly used pots and pans, and useful multi-tools are all things you use quite regularly, so they should be your main priorities when reorganizing your cabinets. Everything else, which you only use periodically, can be relegated to the drawers and cabinets that are out of reach – and in some cases, they may belong in a different room of the house or in long-term storage.
Follow the Pareto Principle
The Pareto principle is most commonly applied in business, but it can also help you declutter and reorganize your kitchen. The idea behind this principle is that 80 percent of results generally come from only 20 percent of the inputs. In sales, 80 percent of your revenue comes from 20 percent of your clients. In the kitchen, 80 percent of your work probably comes from 20 percent of your stored items.
This golden 20 percent should be in the most conveniently accessible, forward-facing cabinets and drawers. Everything else can fill in behind these heavy hitters.
Invest in Organizing Tools
You can make better use of this space inside your cabinets and drawers with better organizing tools. Utensil organizers, hooks, stacking implements, and rotating carousels can all help you keep things neat and tidy, while also accessible.
Label (and Keep Things Consistent)
Once you have your most valuable possessions in place in the most accessible cabinets and drawers, you can start filling in the gaps around them and eventually filling in your least accessible cabinets and drawers. Once you’re mostly satisfied with this arrangement, you should take a moment to either label your cabinets or write down how they’re organized. This way, you can keep your system consistent well into the future.
Minimize New Acquisitions
Finally, make an effort to minimize new acquisitions. Following your organization schema can help you stay organized, but if you continue to acquire new things, eventually your cabinets will become overrun again. Strive to practice minimalism to avoid this.
Reorganizing and decluttering your kitchen cabinets does take some time, but it will make you feel much better about your kitchen. It also has the potential to save you a lot of time and headaches – making it an indispensable pursuit if you spend a lot of time cooking.
