Today, I worked with a client for 2 hours. She needed help with making her mornings easier. So, we started to organize her kitchen. Her goal was to make it user-friendly for her young kids and husband. She has two small children and a busy work schedule where she leaves early in the morning and comes home late at night. As a result, her husband takes care of the children activities pretty much each and every morning with his own work schedule. With this in mind, we set out to organize the kitchen.
Kitchen Organizing For Time Management Tips
First, we started creating a beverage station. Here is the before picture. This is what the inside of the cabinet looks like.
After emptying the cabinet of unwanted items and moving the beverage items, like tea, coffee, and other tools from other cabinets closer to the beverage station, we moved the coffee maker and tea kettle to the beverage area as well.
This is a close up of the cabinet. The tea has its own space. The coffee has its own space. The mugs also have their own space. We even had space for the kids' plastic snack plates, which couldn't be moved because the children and husband used them often.
This is the finished beverage station. It's real. No fancy organizing products. No color-coded products. But it IS functional. Much better, right?
Another problem area was the baby food storage. We added a bin to hold all the baby food. And, reorganized the existing bottles into other containers. This is how it looks now. What do you think?
Keeping the baby bottles in bins kept them contained and easy to put away. The bibs could easily be places in the pull out drawer as well.
That was pretty good for only two hours of work! She and her husband can go through their morning routine with ease. And, the best part is the kids feel more involved in their morning routine, and the parents get help.
But, wait, here are some tips for other areas you can organize to make your morning easier:
Create your mainly used areas next to each other but not in the same cabinet. If there is more than one person in your home, it helps to cut down bumping into each other.
Empty the dishwasher the night so dirty morning breakfast dishes can be placed in the dishwasher. This will keep the kitchen sink clean and not filled with dirty dishes all day.
Prep your meals the night before. Set up the ingredients for your meal the night before. Use breakfast slow cooker recipes and make your breakfast the night before.
Prep your kids' stuff for school or daycare the night before. Make lunches the night before.
Get the kids involved. Toddlers love to help. So, to give them independence and get extra help, store items they will be using plastic bowls, plates, cups in the lower cabinets. They can also help put their stuff away in the kitchen.
Visit these pages for even more information to help you organize your morning routine:
De-Stress Your Morning Routine by Parenting
9 Ways to Speed Up Your Family’s Morning Routine by Real Simple
That's it. I hope this post helps you make your morning easier in your kitchen. Keeping it simple will help everyone in the house. Do you agree? What is your favorite tip? Do you have any other tips you want to share? Please leave a comment below. Feel free to visit our other back to school posts.
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It's amazing what a few little tweaks can do to make everyday life easier! I'm a big fan of beverage zones... it makes getting our caffeine fix in the morning a little easier when everything is together 🙂
What a gift you helped that family with. Making tweaks, like the ones you did can make such an enormous difference. I love creating specific areas for activities within a room, which helps the flow and function work so much better. Nice job on the beverage center!
Just worked on a project like this for a client. It is such a luxury to take your time and organize your kitchen down to the tiniest detail. How smart to have your mugs near your tea near the tea pot near the honey...and yet, many times these items are all over the place. This kind of thing just makes me smile:)