If you are working on organizing your home according to my zone plan, October is the prime month for your kitchen. The holidays are right around the corner and the kitchen will become a very busy place. Seasons have changed so you are ready to put away the ice cream maker and pull out the crock pot. This is also the time of year that food drives kick into high gear so clear out the food that has accumulated this past year because of impulse buying or overbuying.
1. Stand back and study your current kitchen set up. What is bugging you the most? Are your counters too crowded? Do you have difficulty locating items? Are some containers hard to reach?
2. Create a vision of how you want your kitchen to look and feel by the end of this month.
3. Make a list of all that needs to happen to make this vision come true. Some of the tasks on your list might include:
Declutter your counters. Take off everything that you are not using at least weekly. Put these items elsewhere or consider donating them.
Purge your cabinets. How many plastic containers or small saucepans do you really need?
Look for innovative storage ideas. Contain like items together to make it easy to locate them and to make it easy to pull out the container to easily reach what is stored in the back of your cabinets.
Organize for convenience. Store all materials for making coffee near the coffee pot. Place the coffee pot near the sink. Hang your favorite mugs nearby on the wall. Put rarely used items on higher shelves.
Set up your kitchen in zones – food preparation zone, cooking zone, dishes zone, food storage zone, and food serving zone.
4. When your tasks are finalized and written out, schedule them on your calendar. Break up the tasks into manageable bits so that you don’t get overwhelmed.
By the end of the month, your kitchen is ready for anything the holidays can bring to it.
For more details on following this plan, visit my website www.timespaceorg.com and purchase my book, From Vision to Victory: A Workbook For Finding a Simple Path to an Organized Home.
Jonda S. Beattie Professional Organizer
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