I love to organize and I want to make it easier for you to feel, stay and be organized.

Let’s start with your kitchen and your food.  We spend a lot of time thinking about meals – and we have nearly 1000 meals to eat/make in a year.  So it helps you – your wallet and your planning – to organize your food so you make the best use of everything you have.

Simple tips when you’re trying to organize anything:

• Plan time in your schedule to organize.
• Don’t try to do everything today.
• Realize that it’s going to get a little messy before it gets organized.

Here is what I do most Saturday mornings to keep our kitchen and our food organized. I encourage you to try these simple tips:

1. Look through the food in the Freezer, Fridge, Pantry to see what we currently have
2. Get everything out on the counter that I need to process
3. Remove any expired or unusable food from Freezer, Fridge & Pantry
4. Move stored items to be more accessible for others and remind family what is available for snacks and food.
5. Condense items (Two half-full gallons of milk? Condensed! Two half-full popsicle boxes? Condensed!)
6. Wipe down 1-2 shelves in the Freezer, Fridge or Pantry
7. Gather items on the counter that I’ll be prepping later (like old bananas for banana bread or fruits/veggies that I need to chop)
8. Add needed items to my grocery list
9. Return usable/sorted items to Freezer, Fridge, Pantry
10. Make plan to finish any tasks – later that day or the next day (at the latest)

I could spend the whole day organizing the kitchen – and be happy as a clam doing it.  In fact, grocery sorting day is something I really look forward to.  I’m pretty sure I’m in a small minority.  I want to be clear that you don’t have to accomplish everything in one day or at once. I don’t do that.  I spend an hour in the morning organizing my space and make time later in the day (while I’m watching TV) to chop fruits/veggies.  And I often grocery shop a different day too.  But I know that spending focused time each Saturday helps me know what we have and make better use of all of the food in our kitchen.  Try a little of this process today – even if it’s just one of your areas.

I took a picture of my in-progress, messy kitchen on purpose.  I wanted to you to see what my kitchen looks like EVERY TIME that I organize it.  The whole room is filled with stuff (I mean, seriously, look at that countertop).  It gives me the shakes for just a minute and then I remember that I can keep sorting and changing things until it’s back to a system that works for me.

I encourage you to spend time this week – 15 minutes to one hour – organizing your kitchen and your food.