Organize Utensils - A Ten Minute Organizing Project
A previous post here talked about how you could start getting organized in 10 minute increments. But perhaps you’re a bit short on 10 minute organizing projects in your home and life. Or so you think. Today I decided to start giving you some more specific examples of organizing projects you can complete in 10 minutes. I’ll spread some more ongoing throughout this blog and consistently label them as 10 minute organizing projects so you’ll recognize them. Consider this your to-do list for today or just use the ideas randomly as-needed in your life.
Today’s 10 minute organizing project is for the home. It is how to organize your cooking utensils.
Here’s how to do it:
Sort through your cooking utensils. Donate your extra duplicate utensils to charity. Trash any in bad shape (e.g. plastic ones with melted tips). For example, two spatulas is probably enough for most households (assuming you wash your dishes daily and if not this is good incentive to do so). You need one or two gravy/soup ladles, two or three large serving spoons, and so forth.
You can keep these most used cooking utensils in an official Utensil Crock or make do with something like a water pitcher (without the lid) or a fat vase (search Mikasa’s Online Catalog
for some fancy or plain vases).
Put whatever container you use on a kitchen counter or shelf near where you cook. This will free drawer space for something else or make your drawer contents less dense so you can actually see what’s in it. It’ll also keep these often used items handy near where you use them.
Some people say they don’t like to store cooking utensils in an open area like this because their utensils get dusty outside of a drawer. Here’s a tip: If your “most-used” cooking utensils sit there long enough to collect dust, you probably don’t need to keep those particular utensils. If you use your major cooking utensils daily or at least every few days, they won’t collect dust. That’s because you’ll be rotating them in and out of the dishwasher because you used them. So anything that collects dust should call forth the question “do I use this”. If the answer is no, get rid of it.
Also sort through your less used cooking utensils like whisks and tongs. Mostly one of each of these should suffice. You may have an extra set, for instance, for use on the barbecue grill. Or you may have a few different size wood spatulas. Since these are less used cooking utensils (and often various long or awkward shapes) keep these all together loose in one medium-size kitchen drawer. Don’t put anything else not relevant in this drawer. You should be able to see almost at-a-glance what’s in this drawer.
So now you’ve organized all of your cooking utensils into just two visible and easily accessible spots in your home. And you did it in 10 minutes.