Picture this, it is a rainy evening. The sun has set. You have finished all your tasks for the day. Dinner is ready. Laundry is done. Dishes have been washed. You decide to sit down and enjoy a good book against the backdrop of raindrops pattering down your roof. You reach into the shelf, grab the book you purchased a few weeks ago, and are about to sit down when you hear a crash. You frown, looking around. The crash certainly came from inside your home, but there’s no one at home just now. What fell? It didn’t sound like glass breaking. You blink in realization, and hurry to the kitchen cabinet. The one that is somehow always messy. The one which has a mishmash of pots and pans and lids and boxes and lids some more and whatnots. You open the cabinet. Big mistake. Whatever had tumbled inside the cabinet, now creates an avalanche of steel outside. There goes your cozy rainy evening.

You painfully squat low, meaning to shove it all back in, but you can’t. Whatever jenga you’d managed until this point has broken. You must rearrange them all. NOW!

Mission: declutter that kitchen cabinet.

Quick fix: Quickly scan through the items. You already know which pots and pans you use the most. Keep them aside. Everything else is a lost and found cause. You can dump it all in a big box and shove it somewhere until you feel like getting to it, or, if you are like me, you cannot now unsee it and must sort it all at once. Since you’ve read so far, you are most likely like me. Let’s begin.

All the pots and pans you know you’ll never use but have kept them because you spent good money to buy them; well honey, they aren’t exactly earning interest, if you catch my drift. The few that are too bulky or odd-shaped but do get used a few times a year, why are they even in your daily use kitchen cabinet to begin with? Find them a place elsewhere, even if it is in your linen closet! The odd lids which never have a home and you don’t even know which container or pots they even belong to – you know what you need to do with them – why, donate them of course; unless you are an artsy craftsy person who can turn them into something gorgeous, which you likely aren’t since those lids would’ve found a place on your wall as a clock or something by now if you were.

Time check: It has likely been about twenty minutes, your cabinet isn’t exactly in a great shape, but it is atleast now organized enough that you can safely shut it and reclaim the rest of your rainy evening in peace.

Happy reading!