How nice is it to reach in your kitchen cabinet find exactly what you want? It makes your meals easier to prepare and your day run smoothly when your items are right at your fingertips.

This is a time-lapse video so of course it didn’t take me 46 seconds to organize this kitchen cabinet. This project actually took me 20 minutes to organize. Here’s how I did it.

TAKE IT ALL OUT

First, take everything out of your kitchen cabinet. Place all the contents on the counter tops, kitchen table or if you have a lot of stuff in your cabinet, set up a card table.  As you take things out. Group like items together.  Crackers with crackers. Pasta with pasta. Canned goods with canned goods. You get the idea. Now that everything is out of your pantry, you can see everything you have.

MAKE THOSE DECISIONS

This is the time to make some decisions. Remember, the idea here is to be able to see everything you have in the cabinet. This is the time to let go of the “I might need it someday” way of thinking. Go through each item and make a decision. Will you keep it? Or will you let it go?  This is the key moment in organizing anything. Make the decision. Don’t wait. You’ll be happy you did it. Toss of old and expired food. Get rid of things you and your family don’t eat anymore. Get rid of any item that you don’t use on a regular or have plans to use in the near future. Let it go!

**EXPERT TIP

When we go through this process, many of my clients have food that’s not gone bad, but their tastes have changed and they just don’t eat that type of food anymore. If you have food in your pantry that falls into that category, what do you do with it?  One thing you can do is donate the canned goods and packaged items to a food bank, church or soup kitchen.  Many neighborhoods have them. Just make sure to do it right away. We don’t want to create a whole other project for you.

REGROUP and RIGHT SIZE

Now you’ve got all the items that you want to put back into your kitchen cabinet. Repackage those items that need a little TLC or are not in the right size container. You’d be surprised how much space you can gain by putting food in the right sized containers. We Professional Organizers call this re-containerizing.

Along the lines of creating more space, adjust the shelves to the proper height for your items so they fit better on the shelves.

PUT IT BACK

Now is the fun part. Put the food and containers back into the pantry cabinet. Toss the old food and clean up. Congrats!! You’re done and your cabinet looks so much better! Happy cooking.

Want more tips and tricks? Follow along as we release more walkthroughs on our blog!