Fall is in the air.  It’s time to start thinking about the holidays.  Is your kitchen ready for entertaining and lots of cooking? This is a great time to do kitchen reorganization. I use a four-step process to help my clients get organized and stay organized.

 Step 1: Visualize your Success

I want you to visualize an organized kitchen. What does it feel like to prepare meals in that kitchen?  What will you be able to do when your kitchen is organized that you cannot do now?  If you need help, look through some magazines and cut out some kitchen pictures that appeal to you.

Does reality match this vision?  If it doesn’t you must remove the obstacles or roadblocks that are blocking your vision.

Step 2: Remove your Roadblocks.

What are the things that are preventing you from moving forward?  You may have kitchen counters that are covered with papers, useless knick knacks and never used appliances. You may have cabinets that are overstuffed. Your kitchen may not be an efficient workspace because of the placement of items. We need to create action steps to remove these roadblocks.

 One action step is to de-clutter your kitchen, but wait… Do you just jump in with no plan?  You most likely also lack the time and energy to do the de-cluttering. Before you start you need to know how much time you will need to complete the project.

When people call me to come look at their spaces one of the things that I do is estimate the time the project will take.  I have ten years experience helping people get organized. Over the years I’ve come up with a formula to estimate time for kitchen organizing.

Estimate Your Time

To estimate the time to organize kitchen cabinets and drawers figure 30 minutes per cabinet door and 15 minutes per drawer.

For example if you have 14 cabinet doors and 4 drawers your estimated time is 8 hours.  If your kitchen has a pantry you must add that time too.  I calculate pantries by the linear foot.  A reach in pantry that is 3 feet wide will take 3 hours to organize. 

Refrigerator clean-out should be part of this project too.  That is not a service that I offer but I suggest to my clients that after we do the kitchen they should thoroughly clean the refrigerator.  Many of the tips and techniques that I use for cabinets and pantries can be applied to the refrigerator.

Once you have a realistic estimate of the time that you need to complete your project, you can work on the time issue.  You will sit down with your calendar and plan the time you need.  You may have to give something else up in order to complete your project.  I would suggest working in 4 hour or 6 hour sessions on a kitchen project.

You may also need some products for organizing.  You should decide what products to use after you do the sorting. The average homeowner spends $100 on organizing products for the kitchen. Part of the planning will be coming up with a budget.

Next post I’ll go into details about the de-cluttering  process which includes sorting.