Clearly, you don’t have enough counter space in your kitchen. If your sink is overflowing with dishes, cups, and utensils; if your fridge can’t close because there’s not enough room in the door; if food usually gets thrown away because it’s not safe to eat—then you’re probably drowning under a pile of dishes.
Fortunately for you, this article has been created to provide some insight into where the problem might be so that you can fix it before things get out of control. You might be surprised by what you find.
The first thing to do is to start counting the number of items on your sink, your countertops, and in your fridge and cupboards. If you think it’s going to be hard; don’t worry about it. With a little bit of extra imagination, you’ll get a pretty good idea how many items are scattered around in the kitchen that shouldn’t be there.
The next thing you’ll probably want to do is to go through each item one by one and check the expiration date. If it doesn’t have an expiration date, then either you need to think about throwing it away or else you need to find a permanent place for it. If it’s expired, see if you can use any parts of the item before throwing out the rest of it.
In some cases, you might find that recycling certain things is much easier than discarding them entirely.
For example, you could take the food off your counter and put it in the garbage, but that might not be enough. If it’s still sitting there after a few days or even a week, then it probably needs to be cleaned out.
Additionally, in many cases, you will find that alternatives to throwing things away are much cheaper than buying new ones. For example, you might be able to replace the batteries in a remote control instead of buying a new one. Or they might be able to serve as the base for something else that you find, like Christmas decorations or a toy car.
You can go even further and create something new out of them. In many cases, it’s much easier than you think and ends up saving you a whole lot of money.
Aside from all of this, proper inventory is critical in keeping your kitchen clutter free and organized. The first problem with this is that you might be tempted to run a quick inventory without paying close enough attention to what’s where.
The best way to make sure the inventory gives you a complete and accurate list of everything that should be in the kitchen is to first do a quick search of all of the places where kitchen items might be located. When you know for sure that there are no more items than what you’ve already found, then conduct an official inventory.
On the topic of proper inventory, it’s always a good idea to keep an accurate record of all things that should be in your kitchen. The best way to do this is to keep a log of all the things that you make and find, as well as the date they were made and where they came from. Additionally, you should also keep track of any new products that you buy and when they were bought.
With this log, you’ll be able to tell at a glance if you have too much of one product and if there’s more than one way to use it. Armed with this knowledge, you can easily make substitutions that are both cheaper and healthier.
Finally, a quick word of warning—if you find that your kitchen is overcrowded, don’t walk around the house looking for places to put everything. It’s too late for that by the time you’ve noticed that things are getting out of control in the kitchen.
This is a problem that needs to be solved immediately and in small steps, not big ones. Instead, take a few hours out of your schedule and clean everything up so you can see how much space there really is. The difference will surprise you.
In this article, I have attempted to offer several tips and strategies for keeping your kitchen clutter free without having to spend lots of money or time cleaning up.