January is really the perfect month for tossing out expired pantry goods. Anything that has a label of 2009 or later/higher can stay. Anything with a label of 2008 or older/lower needs to be thrown away. This is a great project to let kids help with!!!!
Now let’s move on to Cluttered Counters.
So what was cluttering your countertops this week?
Paper - School papers, bills, mail, newspapers, magazines
Clean Dishes – waiting to be put away, waiting to return to their proper homes
Dirty Dishes – waiting for the dish fairies to wash them
Appliances – unused toaster or coffee pot (Hey, when did we get a rice cooker?)
If papers are your nemesis, I have two suggestions:
1. use the RAFTS system (discussed HERE) to take care of sorting through all of that paper!
2. a HOME HUB to keep everything you need to get your hands on “in the moment”.
Having clean dishes is an easy enough problem to solve. Put them away or return them to whom they belong. No room inside the cupboards to put them away? Maybe it is time to weed out the extras and get back down to the basics.
In my house, I am the dish fairy. I am all for delegating (great job with that Snaphappee!) but sometimes the job just needs to be DONE. If you’re still waiting for the fairies, good-luck-with-that and let me know how long it takes them to finish up for you! (If they still have time, send them my way!)
It seem that we overindulge a bit as a nation. If you drink coffee daily, make waffles a couple times a week, and have toast on a regular basis, I am in favor of keeping them within easy reach. For some of us, that means having an electric friend sitting on the kitchen countertop. By clearing the countertop of just one or two unused appliances – whether you store them away or donate them – can make a world of visual clutter difference.
One of you asked last week about my personal kitchen clutter…
Our kitchen and garage are adjacent, with very little storage area in between. There is frequently a stack of items that are either going to the outside or coming in from the outside that clutter the counter top in one corner. These items eventually get moved to their proper homes, and it isn’t a big issue. This week, I had the brilliant idea – wonderful organizer that I am – to use one of my lovely baskets to contain these items! No more “clutter”. See, even professionals need a kick in the pants - um, I mean a brain storm - every now and then.
Snaphappee, it sounds like you’re doing a great job keeping your kitchen clutter free keep up the good work!
I hope you all enjoyed kitchen month. February is bound to bring things new and exciting! Until then, work on maintaining your kitchen. Make all of your hard work in getting it orderly this month stick!
Professional Organizer
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1 comment:
Well, I must confess that although my counters are clean (and some of those dishes to be returned have been returned now), my refrigerators never did get the work that was assigned. Oops. Can I delegate that?
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