1. Decide to organize your pantry
The first step, as with anything else in life, is to just make the decision that you’re going to start organizing. Really commit though and set a specific date and time that you’re going to do it on.
2. Open the doors
The next step and probably easiest, yet hardest is to open the door/doors of the pantry on the set date and time and get to work.
3. Pull everything out
Doors are open, now pull everything out. Yup, all of it. You may need to designate an area to put all the contents but one way or another it all has to come out. This does two things 1) gives you space for everything to go back in, possibly to a new spot, and 2) forces you to get it done because you’re not going to want everything laying around, getting in the way every day.
As you’re pulling items out from the pantry one by one start sorting them. Put all the cereals together, the snacks together, the cans, drinks, ect. Ect. Doing this will save you time down the road.
4. Sort; then put everything back in
Okay, I know I said to sort when you’re pulling stuff out, doing that in the previous step just helps save time with this one. This step is mainly to double-check that EVERYTHING is placed in its category. It will also help you take inventory, go through each item, and decide if maybe new categories should be made, or if some should be removed.
Once that’s done put it all back into its new home. Strongly consider where each item and category should go. The eye-level shelf should be where the most important and most needed items should go, such as foods or things you access most often. However, a note to consider is that if there are foods you told yourself you shouldn’t eat, like candy, then you can ‘nudge’ yourself by putting that item in a more difficult place to get, such as a top shelf in the furthest corner behind 5 other heavy items. While putting the kale chips at eye level in the very front.
But once you’ve got everything in place and back into the closet, and all the stuff you decided to throw out is in the trash, it’s then time to move to the 5th and final step.
5. Tweak and then feel the relief
Start by making some minor tweaks, but drastic tweaks. Buy shelving drawers, or containers to put cereal in so that you enjoy that experience more. Buying some extra products like baskets, drawers, shelves, and other containers can drastically improve your day-to-day experience.
And once it has, you will feel the power of relief flow over you each and every time you look inside or access something from your pantry.