Kicking the Kitchen Gadget Clutter – Day 14

Have you ever tried to open your kitchen gadget drawer and it gets stuck halfway? Or dig through to the bottom of the pile and realize that it was tucked way in the back? Kitchen gadgets clog our drawers and when we really need something, it takes a few tries to find exactly what we need. So how do you purge down to just the essentials?

That was the question that I asked for years it seemed. My drawer always got stuck and I found myself putting gadgets in other places, but couldn’t always remember where. It was time to make a change. That change meant getting rid of the kitchen gadgets I rarely used and basically just living with less of them.

Maybe you too, have the same issues I did. I must say that I have found a very easy solution and haven’t changed how I store my kitchen gadgets for a couple of years now. Also, I have not had to buy anything new for quite some time because I feel like I have “completed” my inventory. Here’s how:

Find

Take out all of your kitchen gadgets and lay them across a table. Everything from spatulas to bottle openers, to potato mashers.

Ask

• Do I use it? Is it worth keeping for the number of times I use it?
• What is it for? (if you don’t know, out it goes)
• Is it a pain to use?
• Is it broken?
• Is it in good shape?
• Do I have a double of it? Do I need more than one of them?

Ditch and Donate

Throw away or recycle what is not worth donating and donate what you think someone else could benefit from. I had spatulas that had seen better days, so I recycled those.

 

Organize

Gather what belongs together – spatulas with spatulas, wooden spoons with others, etc. At this point you may even realize that you have 5 spatulas, but do you really NEED 5 of them? Donate a few. Also find a system that works for you. I use a Pampered Chef Tool Turn-About for my kitchen gadgets and I don’t think I will ever use anything else. It has worked so well for our kitchen and it fits what I need it to fit.

You can also use various sized boxes for the drawers. I use old cheese boxes, plastic containers, you name it. It just helps keep some order in the drawer so that the gadgets do not get stuck when I open the drawer.

Everything In It’s Place

It is easy to just throw the gadget back in the drawer after you are done using it, not thinking about where it came from. You have set up a system for a reason, so taking the small step to put it where it belongs will save you the time of having find it when you need it again. Create order where you can!

How do you organize your kitchen gadgets?