Pick 5 Things from This List and Get Rid of Them Right Now

Shifrah Combiths
Shifrah Combiths
With five children, Shifrah is learning a thing or two about how to keep a fairly organized and pretty clean house with a grateful heart in a way that leaves plenty of time for the people who matter most. Shifrah grew up in San Francisco, but has come to appreciate smaller town life in Tallahassee, Florida, which she now calls home. She's been writing professionally for twenty years and she loves lifestyle photography, memory keeping, gardening, reading, and going to the beach with her husband and children.
published Aug 23, 2019
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(Image credit: Diana Liang)

The kitchen is the biggest workhorse room in almost every household. It’s not only the place where we store our food and prepare our meals, but especially in the age of the open-concept home, it’s also a hangout spot and maybe even a homework or work area.

With so many things going on in the kitchen, and so many people in and out of it constantly, it’s easy for our kitchens to become cluttered, and fast. What to do? Your assignment for this weekend!

(Image credit: Marisa Vitale)

Get rid of at least five things in your kitchen.

Whether they’re things taking up residence on our counters or unnecessarily stuffing our drawers, cabinets, and pantries, this weekend is the time to streamline our kitchen collections.

Your official assignment for the weekend is to find at least five things you can get out of your kitchen for good, but if you catch some momentum, feel free to keep on going. Any and all of these things will be better off if you can get them out of the kitchen or out of your home:

  • Things on the counters that belong in other rooms of the house. Gather them all into a laundry basket and then put them away where they go.
  • Receipts. If you need it, file it or take a picture and store it digitally. If not, toss.
  • Expired medication and vitamins. Check expiration dates and dispose of medication properly.
  • Nuts and flour that have turned rancid. You can often smell if your nuts have turned, for example. But you may need to do a quick taste test if your items have been decanted and don’t have a date. This will happen with nuts and whole-grain flours more than with more processed flours.
  • Cleaning supplies and tools you don’t use anymore. That spray you can’t stand the smell of or those absorbent rags that you never reach for? Out they go.
  • Junk drawer junk. It’s a catchall, but there is surely plenty of stuff in there that you can get rid of. (Here are some ideas.)
  • Expired food items in the pantry. Like those six cans of pumpkin puree hidden in the back of the top shelf.
  • Coupons. Store them in the car, where you might actually have them when you need them. Recycle expired ones or send them to military families.
  • Overflowing papers, art, or photographs on the fridge. Toss what’s no longer relevant, and narrow down or start fresh.
  • Chipped dishes. Get rid of them. They zap your energy.
  • Useless plastic food containers. Containers without matching lids and lids without matching containers.
  • Takeout condiment packets, napkins, utensils. You don’t need them at home, and no, you won’t ever need to take them anywhere with you (and if you do, you’ll forget to anyway).
  • Magnets. Only keep the meaningful ones that make you happy.

This post originally ran on Apartment Therapy. See it there: Get Rid of These Things in Your Kitchen Right Now