Six Kitchen Organizing Mistakes and Easy Ways to Fix Them - Part 1

So much of what happens in the kitchen is done on autopilot. After unpacking on move-in day, for example, most of us never give another thought to where we put our silverware or how we arrange our spices. But, of course, it’s often the smallest tweaks that make the biggest impact on our kitchen’s form and function. Here we present the easiest kitchen habits and hacks that make your space work harder for you with little additional work.

Mistake 1: The spice jars are stacked, stuffed and spun every which way. It is, therefore, impossible to find what you’re look for when you need one quickly. And it’s important to know how long the spice has been in the cabinet.

Easy Fix:

Skip the cabinet altogether. Instead, stand spice up in a drawer and label the TOPS of the lids. That way, it’s easy to look down and find the spice you need. Here’s the bonus: Date the bottom of the jars, too. Look every few uses. And, of course, replace spices after about a year for optimal flavor.

Mistake 2: You store your rimmed baking sheets with your other baking equipment.

Easy Fix:

Baking sheets aren’t really for baking. Instead, they’re for roasting vegetables, toasting nuts, baking proteins like fish and chicken. And you use them a lot. But they’re often stored with cake pans, muffin tins, pie plates, and other things that you use less frequently that come in lots of specialty sizes and shapes. This is the definition of clutter, for sure! Liberate your rimed baking sheets and give them better space than all your other baking equipment. Stacked side by side or on top of one another is fine. What’s important is to give them their own designated space. For example, in a specially built-out cabinet. To make access even easier, keep them in a waist-height cabinet or even a drawer near the stove.

Mistake 3: You think that you need a fancy organizing system to start getting your kitchen organized.

Easy Fix:

You likely already have the tools to start straightening up and organizing your kitchen. Even ordinary household items can make for great organization. File separators (such as from an office supply store) or thin metal bookends work great in a pantry or deep drawer. And you can keep your pots and pans from being scratched by slipping paper plates or paper towels between the larger ones. You can also use coffee filters or paper dessert plates between the smaller ones.

Mistakes 4: Oils and vinegars drip into your cupboards, making shelves a slippery, sticky mess.

Easy Fix:

A shallow plastic tray, plate or cutting board inside your cabinet can hold all those messy bottles. You can easily run the plate through the dishwasher when it gets too greasy. Just be sure to set it up away from the stove or the stop of the refrigerator. The warmth from the appliances can quickly turn your oils rancid.

Mistake 5: Your favorite kitchen shelf is overloaded. It looks messy and it may even be a safety hazard.

Easy Fix:

Take the guesswork out of finding these necessary items and put them together within the tiny walls of a tray. Trays are handy because you can pick them up and move them around the kitchen. You can move them from shelf to countertop to table. At our home, we use a pretty blue and white tray. It’s sturdy enough to hold all the items, yet light enough to move around. Bonus points go to finding a pretty one that looks great on your table!

Mistake 6: You overlook cabinet doors as a place for additional storage.

Easy Fix:

Reclaim that unused space with hooks. You can use Command Hooks by 3M to hold oven mitts, towels, measuring spoons, small cutting boards, attachments to appliances, and other frequently used items that can clutter a drawer.

The Uncluttered Life, Inc.

Look to The Uncluttered Life, Inc. for more ideas to make home organization easier. The Uncluttered Life is a home organization company located in the DFW Metroplex and online. We offer a great item, called Declutter Deck®. Declutter Deck® helps you easily get your entire home organized. The deck of 52 cards focuses a lot of time on decluttering the kitchen area of your home. These decks are sold on this website for $19.95 per pack of Hack Deck™ cards.