Backstory

Over a year ago, I had an idea for creating a video because of needing to reorganize my own kitchen pantry. I was frustrated with the downsize from a larger walk-in pantry with shelves, to a smaller pantry cabinet with deep pull-out drawers. Suddenly, all the containers I owned for dry goods were just all wrong! Lids kept getting stuck on each other and pulled off, resulting in several messes. Things just didn’t fit efficiently in the drawers, causing too much wasted space. Because of the downsize in space, every little inch mattered! Something needed to be done!

Strategy

Time for me to follow my own organizing advice, and use my “3e Organizing Strategy: Evaluate, Edit, & Energize”. This is a strategy I use with my organizing clients, and consists of the following steps:

• Evaluate: take an inventory of the items in the pantry
• Edit: discard any spoiled or unwanted foods
• Energize: create a new system complete with containers and labels

Evaluate

I evaluated and assessed my pantry contents. It is crucial to determine the amount of quantity that is typically purchased. This is so your containers will hold the amount of food on hand. When making a list of the foods you plan to decant into new containers, be honest with yourself. While it may look pretty, it’s not always the most practical, depending on how fast your family goes through certain foods, and the quantity that you buy. It doesn’t make sense for my family to have decanted containers of cereal, for example, since my kids gnaw through it all so darn fast! I found that 1: The containers took up more space than the boxes; and 2: I always had to refill containers before food even a chance to spoil!

Edit

Next, time for a Target Run! I chose my containers because of their shape and size. Square containers will nest right up next to each other, and make for less wasted space, unlike round containers. I also measured the height of my drawers, to be sure containers would fit both upright, and also while stacked in my drawer. Even though the drawers are adjustable, keeping them at their current drawer height was important, or else all the other drawers would all need to be reconfigured. And “easy” is what we are going for here. I also checked the quantity of the size containers, so that they would fit the quantity that I need for my home.

Energize

Then came the fun part – sorting, decanting, rearranging, and firing up my label maker to get the job done. Honestly, I only recently finished adding vinyl drawer labels to the outside of the drawers, to complete the look and function. I’m so pleased with how it looks! 

The Debut

While we are being completely honest, this video was actually recorded video a year ago! I even paid for professional video editing to take out all the bloopers, and yet, I’ve been so nervous about posting the video and putting myself out there. Recently, after talking with a good friend, I was encouraged to do that more – to “put myself out there”. Many times, my clients are feel vulnerable to “put themselves out there” to hire a stranger to come see their mess and help them get organized. If some of my most hesitant organizing clients can take the plunge and let someone in to see their imperfection, then surely I return the favor, right? So… without further delay, here is the link to my new YouTube Channel, and my premier video!

Thanks for being here! (And also for following, subscribing, and sharing! 🙂