Before I begin, as a disclaimer, I’d like to admit that I do not claim to have all the answers to organizing things. I read a lot, I look at how some of the organizing magazines suggest doing things and I pray about how to organize something. If something isn’t working, I don’t get peace. I currently don’t have peace when it comes to this one computer desk. It’s a “catch all” for papers of all kinds. Things are not working, so I’m praying about how to handle organizing it all. If it means completely rethinking everything, then it will come to me, eventually.
If the kitchen is the heart of the home, then it makes sense to begin there. Right now, as I type this, my daughter is sitting on a chair reading a book in the kitchen by the stove while pumpkin pancakes are cooking for breakfast. There are things that need to be put away, wiped down and just generally tidied up. This is what happens when a family is home and lives here. Things are generally clean. When things need to be cleaned up, it usually takes about 15-20 minutes to complete the entire kitchen's daily chores.
Organizing begins, after utilizing the FLYlady methods, by decluttering. If there is clutter in your kitchen, you’ll know it because you won’t be able to find things easily. Or, you have a young person putting things away in a different spot each time they put it away. Yup! I have one of those! He wants to get it done quickly and forgets that the twix-it clips belong in one drawer and he puts them in another and the list could go on with the food processor parts, lids and plastic items. This is a matter of training which is a part of running a home as well. Since my husband doesn’t care for the thought of labeling where everything goes, I have to find another way. Regardless, if there are too many items in your kitchen and you don’t use them, it is time to bless someone else with those items. Which reminds me, I have a couple items I'd like to bless someone else with.
When the Kitchen cleaning week rolls around, I have one day delegated to decluttering a part of my kitchen. I don’t do every part of my kitchen every time the week rolls around. Usually what I do is take a mental note of what area needs doing as I’m working or passing through. Then when my decluttering time comes around, I address that area. I give myself some grace and mercy though, too. If this week, we’re supposed to work on the Living Room and it has been dusted, wiped, decluttered and etc, I allow myself to go outside the Living Room and work elsewhere on a special “usually overlooked” area for my 15 minutes of work time. For those of you who don’t know, I work very hard to keep my house clean, just 15 minutes a day. Some days it doesn’t work, or people are sick and I need to play catch up, but this is all I do for deep cleaning, 15 minutes a day. Today is wiping things down day in the Living Room. The wiping down was already done, so I had some extra free time today. I needed it too and I used it by going off to pray alone. What a blessing!
As for decluttering in the kitchen, start by opening a drawer and taking mental stock of what you have, what you don’t use, what needs thrown out, and what you need. If there is something you don’t use, find a box and start a “give away pile”. The next time you go to town, take it with you to Good Will or Salvation Army as a donation, or give it to a needy family you may know. This is called “blessing someone else” with the stuff you don’t use. This isn’t broken junk that needs to be thrown out. This is stuff that is still usable, has life and use in it, but you just don’t use it. Yes, there are things in my drawers that have never been used. I should pass them on to someone else, but they hold memories for me and there are only two and they're cute stoneware cookie molds that a dear friend gave me years ago. So, I'm keeping them.
Keep going through your kitchen one drawer at a time, not all at one time, though. That is just way too overwhelming. If you can't deal with it in 15-30 minutes and get everything wiped down and put away, just do a smaller chunk! :)
Keep going through your kitchen one drawer at a time, not all at one time, though. That is just way too overwhelming. If you can't deal with it in 15-30 minutes and get everything wiped down and put away, just do a smaller chunk! :)
After you’ve decluttered your kitchen, you’ll find that you have space that you can use for storing things. I’ve made room under my buffet table and found a place to store my flour, sugar, dried beans, some baking pans neatly tucked in a bin, and 2 bins of rice--one white rice and the other a mixture of brown, black, Indian and other wild rices. If you’re looking for places to store things so you can buy in bulk and bake more things from scratch, just look around and see what you can do to clear out, declutter and find those interesting places for your bulk food items. For us, we live in rural PA. I don’t like taking too many trips to town because it uses gasoline. I need to be a good steward of the things the Lord has placed in my care. Decluttering, making room for more storage, baking from scratch, striving for greater organization, is a very small part of the larger picture.
Decluttering the cupboards is the same as the drawers. There may be out of date items that need to be thrown out, stale items that didn’t get closed well enough, stuff that when once tried, it just didn’t appeal to the family. This is normal for our family and I’m sure it may be the same for others as well. It is rare, but it does happen that we don’t care for something that we’ve purchased “just to try.” The important thing is to set the timer for 15 minutes and see if you can declutter a cupboard completely, wipe everything down and put it back. Once you realize you can do this, it is empowering. You’ll want to do more. Just make sure you give yourself a 15 minute break every hour or you’ll get burned out. I don’t work like that any longer, unless we’re canning. I have lessons to teach, children to train, sewing, crocheting, and knitting to do. Paperwork needs to get done, children to spend time with, a husband who needs me at any given time. Things need to be more flexible at some times than at others. This is the nature of the flow of our lives. Deep cleaning is a necessary part of our lives, but it doesn't have to encompass all of our days.
Once your kitchen is decluttered, it will not take much to keep it decluttered. Your once a month week of decluttering and deep cleaning along with your daily wiping and shining the sink should keep your kitchen clean. Of course there will be the odd thing spilled on the floor that completely soaks everything and you have to clean out every possible crack and crevasse. This happened to us when someone tripped over the cord to the crock pot that spilled 6 quarts of turkey broth all over the dining room floor.
This is all I do for my kitchen organization. Things change around occasionally to see if they work better somewhere else and that is ok too. The biggest point is to just jump in with both feet, set the timer and go. Chances are that you already know what needs to be done in your kitchen, you just need a little push, like I did. ;)
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