{"id":27597,"date":"2014-05-30T08:00:06","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/?p=27597"},"modified":"2014-05-30T13:19:34","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T19:19:34","slug":"declutter-kitchen-one-cupboard-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/declutter-kitchen-one-cupboard-time\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Declutter Your Kitchen One Cupboard at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest mistakes<\/strong> people make with any project is thinking of it in too large of terms. Sure, it is useful to begin with a broad goal: I want to organize my kitchen cupboards.<\/em> But if you continue to think of it in those terms your are likely to get discouraged, and quite possibly never start. For one thing, it can be impossible to arrange a big enough block of time for such a grand accomplishment. For another, it’s hard to know where to start. If you do start, the next thing you know, it’s three days later and you haven’t seen your children since then… they are either “eating their way out from under something” or doing something that will send you through the ceiling. Your husband has gone to live at the office, and you are ready for the funny farm trying to make decisions about what to throw away and what to keep. That is why you should only declutter your kitchen one cupboard at at time – one day at a time.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This cupboard might not look so bad in the front, but I know that I haven’t seen some of the deeper parts in a while. There is stuff back there that is at least 5 years old or in such inconvenient packaging that I have to be in a special mood to try to access it. I’m going in!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The one day<\/strong> at a time doesn’t even need to be consecutive days. You can aim for once a week, or even once a month. Anything will help. But just start with one medium to small cupboard, and only one. You may feel inspired at the end of one cupboard, but I recommend you stop there. It is like a good workout. It is best to stop when you are feeling like you could have done more, energized by the thought of getting back too it next time.<\/p>\n

There is also<\/strong> how the brain works to take into account. The brain tends to process things during the down time, without us even trying. If you give some time between efforts, you will find yourself automatically problem solving issues that would have taxed your mental powers differently if you tried to organize more right away. You can plan which cupboard you will organize next. You can even take a moment and look at it to evaluate contents, but don’t work on it until the next day, after a night’s sleep. There may be some shuffling of contents between cupboards as you go along, but if you limit it to very obvious relocations, you will not get bogged down as easily. Other rearranging will come to you as you get to that particular cupboard.<\/p>\n

Giving yourself<\/strong> time between cupboards allows for communication between family members, if you have more than one person using the kitchen. At my house, we have multiple cooks and people shopping for their particular cooking plans. It’s not that everyone is doing their own cooking, but the 2-3 kids that live here still are adults. They cook for all of us, for their own special events, and to accommodate their schedules. And my husband cooks or goes shopping for party food. Only worrying about one cupboard for a day means I can relax more about talking to them, and giving them time to answer. And I’m not interrupting people all day. When people have various work schedules or my husband is in his workshop, it is troublesome to everyone if I have to run around all day asking these questions. Who bought this? Do you still want it? Does anyone really eat this? <\/em><\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
One cupboard’s worth of contents fits reasonably on the counter while still leaving enough room to see things and organize your decluttering thoughts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is also enough<\/strong> counter space to easily handle the contents of one cupboard without having to clean the whole kitchen or to finally find space at 9:30 PM to cook dinner. Activities in the kitchen can go on pretty much as usual. No massive clean-up needs to be done before you begin and no frantic midnight, possibly useless, organizing. I can get everything out within 10 minutes, note what I want to ask questions about, and take about 5 minutes of each person’s time because they can see exactly what I’m talking about. Then, I can get on with my little project, feeling very good about my progress, because one cupboard is the goal for the day.<\/p>\n

Cleaning out<\/strong> kitchen cupboards will inevitably lead to needing to wash containers. I personally ended up with 5 empties from just one cupboard. This due to things hidden in the back, expired food, and repackaging in better sizes and shapes. The containers were on the large side, so it was one load of hand washing (since they weren’t of the sort to go in the dishwasher or it would have been a waste of dishwasher space). This amount of extra dishwashing in one day is much more manageable than multiple cupboards worth.<\/p>\n

Speaking of containers<\/strong>, I have an odd mix, but they have some characteristics in common.<\/p>\n