Sorting Containers and Packing Lists

To simplify your kitchen, and eventually other areas of your home, two strategies are going to come in handy: sorting boxes and packing lists. 

Every object in your home requires your time, either by being cared for, or by getting in your way, or both. Reducing your kitchen to the essentials is going to make cooking and cleaning the kitchen much simpler and quicker. 

Before you freak out, note that we are not actually parting with anything at this stage (unless you want to). We’re just going to experiment with a minimized and streamlined kitchen. 

Sorting Containers

Many decluttering and organizing experts recommend having three boxes or bags marked “give away,” “throw away,” and “put away.” The principle behind this practice is to focus on just one question--”does this belong here?”--rather than trying to decide not only if you want the object, but what to do with it, where to display or store it. For some reason, trying to make too many decisions at once kills the project. Using sorting containers keeps you focused. So instead of trying to find permanent homes for things while you’re trying to focus on clearing clutter, just give yourself some places to hold different categories of things temporarily. You may want to have boxes with “recycle,” “ask Joe about,” “return to owner,” “sell,” “put downstairs” or whatever. The point is, give yourself some sorting containers so you can focus on sorting, not stashing. These sorting containers can be boxes, bags, hampers, or whatever.

Packing Lists

If you were going to move to a very small dwelling, or to your dream home, or wherever you might move, what kitchen essentials would you take with you? Without looking at your kitchen, try making a list of what you know you’d really need. Take your time. Come back to this list after a day and add or subtract. 

When you feel pretty good about your packing list, try removing anything from the kitchen that is not on the list. Put those “non essential” items away for a few weeks if you don’t want to part with it, 

Is it easier to cook and clean in this reduced kitchen, especially now that you’re getting better at Speed Dishwashing?

If you miss something tremendously, by all means, go ahead and take it back out. But don’t take something out just because the other one you have is dirty and waiting to be washed. You know how to speed dishwash now. It takes less time and is much more tidy to clean one item more frequently than to pile up dirtied multiples of the same thing just because you don’t want to wash. If you’re cooking a lot at a time, and you’re actually using multiples at the same time, that’s a different matter.

A few years ago, I did this experiment. My kitchen only had two place settings per family member that was capable of using dishes, one cast-iron skillet, one stock pot, one saucepan, two cookie sheets, three mixing bowls with lids (doubled as tupperware), a crock pot, a blender, two kitchen knives, a can opener, two spatulas, a mixing spoon, some towels and washcloths, seven spices, salt, and a few jars collected from bottled foods we had eaten recently. Did I miss something in this list? Maybe. It has been a while. 

I can honestly say that in that essentials-only kitchen, I made multi-course, flavorful, everything-from-scratch meals, three times a day. The dishware I had was always either clean (because I did speed dishwashing) or in use. My small kitchen’s cupboards had plenty of space in them, even empty space, and I never had to wrestle anything in or out of a storage space while keeping everything from spilling out. That kitchen was peaceful and super efficient. Oh yes. I almost forgot. I had a small potted plant and two beeswax candles on the windowsill. That was all the decoration I had. The countertops were completely clear and spacious and clean, ready for whatever project I wanted to tackle in my kitchen. This is an extreme example, but I hope it makes the point that

• if you really want to buy yourself time, try a reduced kitchen. Just see how it goes. 

Later on we’ll do a more thorough declutter for your entire house. Hang on to your sorting containers for later. But for now, to streamline your kitchen processes, try some of these ideas. 

Homework: Create some sorting containers and start writing your kitchen packing list in your BOPO