Having an organized kitchen can keep the stress from winter festivities at bay. But you don’t need hours to spend on the job—you can do it one drawer and one cabinet at a time.

 

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There is one drawer in my reasonably organized kitchen that’s a lifesaver. That’s because it contains the utensils I use almost every day in preparing meals for my family. When I need to cut an onion, I don’t have to search for the cutting board. If I need to measure a cup of flour and a teaspoon of salt, I can put my hands on both measures instantly. It’s in that drawer where my super-handy flexible silicone spatulas are also kept. The digital thermometer is in there too.

What isn’t in there? All the other miscellaneous kitchen equipment I like to have but don’t use often. That drawer used to be kind of a catch-all for every kitchen utensil, until I realized how much extra time it took me to cook a meal when I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Now I’m a lean, mean cooking machine.

If you only have a few minutes at a time to work on organizing your kitchen, I suggest you start with that one drawer. It will make mealtimes so much simpler and more fun. You might even save yourself enough time to organize the other parts of your kitchen.
   
HousekeepingChannel.com has great articles on kitchen organization.

• The Dinner Party Kitchen

• 10 Steps to an Organized Pantry

• 10 Steps to Streamline the Kitchen

(Note: The views expressed in this blog post are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of The Housekeeping Channel, LLC.)