How To Organize Your Kitchen For Maximum Efficiency
My sister had a new house built and, after the movers arrived, I got to organize her kitchen! Organization is kind of my thing. It’s like a giant puzzle and, if you catch me standing in the middle of the room, with boxes everywhere, staring into empty shelves, just know I’m putting the puzzle pieces together, in my head!
There are three things I consider, when organizing a kitchen for maximum efficiency.
- Proximity To The Dishwasher
- Work Zones
- Ease Of Use
1) Proximity To The Dishwasher
When choosing where to put dishes, glassware, and silverware, it’s important to consider how many steps you will have to take from the dishwasher to the cupboards and drawers. The dishwasher will need to be unloaded at least once a day so you might as well make it as easy as possible.
Stand beside your open dishwasher and and decide the best place for your dishes, glassware, and silverware that will require the fewest steps from the dishwasher to the cupboard or drawer.
2) Kitchen Work Zones
Make your time spent in the kitchen as efficient as possible by creating work zones. A work zone should have everything you need, within arm’s reach.
- Sack Lunch Station – Create an area where you will store lunchboxes, lunch bags, baggies, napkins, and dry lunch snacks.
- Coffee Area – Place your coffee pot on the counter with coffee mugs, in the cupboard above, along with coffee and coffee filters.
- Leftovers – Store containers with lids in an easy-to-access spot so you can take leftovers to the counter, grab the right storage container, and place them in the fridge. Keep plastic wrap and baggies in a nearby drawer.
- Cooking Area – Keep pots and pans nearby as well as spices, cooking oils, strainers, and potholders.
- Washing Zone – Dish towels and dishcloths are convenient to have right next to the sink. Store dishwasher detergent and dish soap under the sink.
3) Ease Of Use
While I was organizing the dishes, pots and pans, and serveware, my nephew went to the pantry, looking for a snack! Of course, everything was in bags and boxes, at this point, but it made me realize a snack section was in order!
Pantries can easily become a jumbled mess of Costco-size snacks, drinks, canned goods, and paper products. Coming up with a system and a place for everything will help lessen the mess and make your pantry a place where everything is easy to find!
We came up with different categories and placed the items from those categories on their designated shelves, as we pulled them out of boxes. Once we had everything on the shelves, I did a little moving around because rarely do you get it perfectly right the first time and we want this space to work hard for my sister’s family!
Here are the categories we ended up with, in her pantry:
- Jars
- Paper Products
- Small Appliances
- Drinks
- Cooking Flavors
- Cookbooks
- Snacks
- Rice
- Pasta
- Cereal
- Canned Goods
- Breads And Pasta Sauce
- Back Up
- Baking
Now, if anyone wants to bake something, they will know right where to go. Better yet, if they want a snack, there’s a place to look to see every snack they have on hand!
There’s even enough room for the first Costco trip they make, living in their new home!
Organize your kitchen for maximum efficiency by taking into consideration the proximity to the dishwasher, work zones, and ease of use!
Once you move into your new home and organize your kitchen the way you think it will work best, live with it that way for a few weeks. Then, change things up with what you’ve learned by the way you work in your new kitchen.
