Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? by Peter Walsh

Author:Peter Walsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2008-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

GET YOUR KITCHEN’S WEIGHT UNDER CONTROL!

Kitchens attract a ton of useless but seemingly “must-have” gadgets and gizmos. Tune into late-night infomercials if you don’t believe me! If you bought it over the phone after 8:00 p.m., chances are you don’t need it. The first step to getting organized is to seriously pare down the amount of food, dishes, and appliances in your kitchen. Discard those items that have outlived their usefulness. Do you really need to keep that bread maker just because it was a Christmas present? It’s taking up valuable counter space. And those specialty pots and pans, egg slicers, apple corers, melon ballers, and who knows what—do you really use them?

As terrifying as it might sound, what you need to do now is to help your kitchen shed some of those excess pounds that have accumulated over the years. Assess what you have in your kitchen and discard what is no longer necessary. Be brave—this is an important step in the process. Making your kitchen lighter is a step toward making yourself lighter. Cleaning out your kitchen is a two-part process: the Quick Purge and the Deep Clean. Be ruthless in the Quick Purge and, I promise, the Deep Clean will be easier.

Quick Purge and Deep Clean your kitchen

The Quick Purge

Start at one end of your kitchen and go through each cupboard and drawer quickly and efficiently. Pull anything out that you no longer use or need and also remove anything that doesn’t belong in the kitchen—toys, crafting materials, car parts, musical instruments. You get the idea. Anything that isn’t used for food preparation, storing, serving, or cleanup has to go. Pull out the duplicates of items you have and decide which is the better one to keep. If it’s broken—toss it. If it’s stained or chipped beyond use—throw it out. If you don’t like it—get rid of it. The goal here is to quickly remove those items that you definitely don’t want, need, or use. It shouldn’t take much thought or emotional energy to get this done. The secret is to move as quickly as you can. Place all these items on the counter or floor or even in a wheelbarrow parked in the kitchen if that works for you—just get it done! Then, just as quickly, get all the items you no longer need out of your kitchen. Remember that the more space you clear at this stage, the less work you’ll have to do in the next round.

The Deep Clean

Already you should notice a difference in the look and feel of your kitchen. Simply decluttering, without any organizing, opens up more space than most people can imagine. Now, look again at the zones or activity centers you listed in the table. You now need to move logically through your kitchen and remove everything from every cupboard—you can do the drawers in the same way later. (Note: You can break up this Deep Clean over time. Clear out one drawer or cabinet each evening instead of watching TV.

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