Ways To Keep Your Kitchen Clean When You Are a Slob

In reality, many of us are messier than the Marie Kondo fantasies make us out to be. On top of the zillion other tasks we don’t want to do, why the heck would we put cleaning our kitchen on the top of the list? It’s just going to get dirty by the next mealtime anyway.

True—but there are some ways around this. It’s a matter of being proactive about staying clean rather than letting the mess become a disaster zone and coming in with a hazmat suit. Here are the three best ways to keep your kitchen clean when you are a slob.

Clean As You Go

You can clean up most messes in under a minute. No, I’m not talking about dropping a jar of marinara (and it shattering into a crime scene). I’m referring to minor spills here and there. If you don’t clean these up right away, they will stare you down and taunt you until you cave.

Clean up after every meal that you cook. While waiting for the dish to cook in the oven, wash the cutting board and knives. After serving everybody’s plates, put the leftovers in a Tupperware container and wash the pot you cooked it in. Your food is too hot to eat anyway, and it will only take you 40 seconds to clean up. After you’re done eating, all you have to clean is a fork and plate, and you can digest your food baby in peace (with a clean kitchen).

Don’t Stuff Your Cabinets Aimlessly

Next up on our favorite ways to keep your kitchen clean when you are a slob is to keep the inside of your cabinets organized. No, you don’t need to portion everything out into clean containers with labels, but it does help to have some degree of order. These are some “sections” that you should have in your pantry:

• Baking
• Grains
• Snacks
• Sauces and cans
• Spices

Even though no one uses the inside of your pantry as a dining table, it still manages to get dirty somehow. It sucks, but learn to properly clean your cabinets to prevent any wood from rotting or bug problems.

Keep Only Essentials on the Countertop

Finally, one of the contributors to a clean-looking countertop is making sure you don’t store unnecessary junk up here. For example, if you have coffee every day, then keep the coffee maker out. However, we leave many items on the counters because we think we need easy access to them, but this makes the space look more cluttered. It also makes it more annoying to wipe down the surfaces because you have to move a bunch of different containers or appliances in the process.

The point of a clean kitchen isn’t to look like an Instagram post: It’s to make your life easier and more relaxed whenever possible. By following these tips, you can change your habits to do just that.