Kitchen Tip #1 - The Habit Of Cleaning As You Go

You can actually get more done while taking up less time!

Did you know that if you wait until every dish in your kitchen is dirty, that you only have to wash dishes two or three times a week? Unfortunately, this strategy takes A LOT of time... and can cause a lot of frustration while you're looking for that certain thing you want to use.

We spend a lot of time in our kitchens, often doing things like cooking, eating and cleaning, In fact, many of us treat these as three separate activities. We cook; we eat; and then we clean.

What if we practice breaking things up into smaller steps? For example, let’s pretend we’re making a casserole for dinner:

• Prepare all ingredients as needed (thaw, peel, chop, boil, grate, etc)

• Assemble ingredients into a casserole dish

• Preheat the oven and cook the meal

• Clear the table

• Set the table with plates and cutlery

• Eat your amazing meal!

• Throw out any garbage

• Put dishes in dishwasher

• Wash the pots and pans

• Wipe all the counters and table

Don't leave it till the end

You may feel like you just spent a whole bunch of time doing all the cooking and making sure everybody had somewhere to eat. You did! And so it's easy to take a break and leave all this cleaning till later - when you might have "more energy".

Cleaning as you go is about spreading out all those little cleaning steps in between tasks instead of leaving them until the end. Some of them you may do naturally already. It includes things like:

• throwing out the baggie or wrapper the meat was in

• composting the veggie scraps immediately

• placing dirty items into a sink full of hot soapy water as you move onto the next step

• washing the pots and counters while the casserole is in the oven

Working like this, the cleaning gets halfway done before you even eat! (You might even have a few minutes for that glass of wine before the timer goes off...just sayin')

Oh and don't forget this last step - rather than just clearing dishes off the table after the meal, if you wipe it down right away you won’t have to do it before you start your crafting project... because your home should have room for fun things too, not just work.

"Cleaning doesn't have to be a dreaded list of chores" ~ Peter Walsh