When life gets crazy, one of the first places mess shows up is on the kitchen counters (ahem, dirty dishes, I’m looking at you).
The disaster soon spreads across the kitchen like some evil, noxious mold. And pretty soon, you’re drowning in visual clutter.
And if we’re real here . . . life being crazy is just ‘life’ most of the time. So if your counters are messy because of the craziness . . . well, for most of us that means that our counters are just messy period.
I know. I’ve been there. My counters still get messy sometimes. But, I’m writing this article because I’ve found tips and tricks that actually help (Like, in real life, not just in designer magazines).
So, let’s sit down and have a chat about how to permanently clear out that countertop clutter and get some counter space back.
It’s going to require some extra effort initially, and I’m sorry . . . (seriously, I am!) But that additional up-front effort will be worth it, and it will likely be easier than you think. (Even if you have a small kitchen!)
So, let’s get down to business and recover that valuable real estate on your counters!
14 Tips for maintaining cleanliness on the counters in your kitchen
Tip 1: Store as little as possible on your counters
Please don’t bleep out this tip as a copy-and-paste kitchen organization tip.
I included this because it is REALLY important. Here are two reasons why storing less on your counters will make a difference:
1. Stuff attracts stuff (it just does). If your flat surfaces default to storage space, unwanted items will accumulate. (Please trust me on this. Or, experiment and see for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.)
2. Removing kitchen counter clutter makes it very easy to wipe everything down and prevent the buildup of gunk and bacteria.
So, keep decorations to a minimum (I’m looking at you, bowl of fruit) and move things like your mixer, cutting board, crock pot, air fryer, food processor, toaster, or other small appliances to new homes beneath your kitchen countertops or elsewhere.
(You don’t have to listen to me 100% on this. Your counters are YOURS, so you can leave a few things—like your knife block or paper towel holder—out. But I want you to be aware that, generally speaking, less is more when it comes to keeping your counters clean ☺)
What if You Have a Small Kitchen or Little Storage Space?
If you’re short on storage space and you’re not sure how to make things fit, here are a couple of suggestions:
First, I would look into internal shelves or drawers for your cupboards (if you don’t have something already). I’ve seen people use things like these basic wire shelves or these awesome heavy-duty pull-out cupboard shelves to maximize their cupboard space.
Next, if you don’t have a lot of cupboard and drawer space (or maybe you don’t have a pantry) and your budget is tight, you can look into some of Walmart’s cheap shelving/hutch options. They can work wonderfully in a pinch. (Maybe you won’t want them forever, but they’ll sure make your life easier at a low cost in the meantime).
I currently use a cube shelf for many of my pantry items.
Walmart has a lot of colors and design options, but a couple that I liked after sifting through a lot of different reviews, products, and sellers were this basic cube shelf for $35, this hutch with drawers and a cupboard for $119, and this space-optimizing corner shelf for $184.
Many similar options have different colors available too.
Tip 2: Make frequently used kitchen items easy to put away
If items are easy to put away, you are more likely to pick them up instead of leaving them out.
Now, this doesn’t mean you should go back to keeping everything on your counters.
However, if you use your blender a lot, put it somewhere easy to access. Maybe in the cupboard by where you use it most, for example.
Also, make sure to store items according to priority. For example, if you have a crock pot and a George Foreman grill, but you use your crockpot weekly and your grill occasionally, then keep your crockpot at the front for easy access and your grill at the back.
If I frequently have to move stuff to get to items I want, I re-evaluate my cupboard organization. (Remember, there is no reason not to try new, free ways of organizing. If you redo something and hate it, you can always try something different.)
Storage solutions like I suggested above (the small wire shelves and sturdy pull-out cupboard drawers can also make a big difference in increasing the ease with which you can put things away in your kitchen.
Tip 3: Give everything a home
What is the hardest item on your kitchen counter to put away?
I’ll bet you 50 dark chocolate bars it’s that little orphan item you don’t know what to do with. (Sorry . . . I actually won’t bet you that. Chocolate’s hard to ship.)
But do you know what that orphan item needs most?
It needs a HOME, of course! So give it one. And give every. item. in. your. kitchen. a. home..
When every item has a designated place, you won’t have to continually stop and think “Ummm . . . where should I put this?”
So give everything a home. It’ll make cleaning faster, and it’ll give you those clean countertops that you want.
Tip 4: Give limbo items (like mail and important papers) in your house a place to go until you can take care of them
Lots of people get hung up on ‘limbo items’ when decluttering. ‘Limbo items’ are typically paper clutter like mail, cards, or invitations that don’t have a home yet, but need some attention before you can give them one.
If your counters are a dumping ground for limbo items, create a designated place to put those items until you can handle them.
This spot might be a tray on your countertop. Or maybe, it’ll be a specific “drop zone” in your kitchen. But at the end of each day, you can take them upstairs to a designated spot to go through later (that’s what I did in our last apartment).
Be sure you make time on a regular basis to go through those limbo items, though. Otherwise, they’ll build up and create a scary avalanche of papers.
(Not that I’ve ever experienced that . . .).
I suggest making a weekly routine to help you manage tasks like this.
If processing and organizing papers is tricky for you, listen to this podcast on processing papers with April Perry. For even more help, I highly recommend her course, Steps to Everyday Productivity. I don’t use all of April’s methods, but her concepts have made a big difference in my life (and doing this blog effectively would be a lot harder without them).
Tip 5: De-clutter (and don’t hate me for saying it)
I won’t lecture you on the importance of de-cluttering, because I’m sure that you’ve heard plenty. I value minimalistic thinking and know that as I decrease clutter around me, it reduces my “brain clutter” as well.
I feel less stressed and overwhelmed.
Decluttering also makes it easy to give items a home, so less stuff collects in places it shouldn’t (such as on your kitchen countertops).
If you don’t know where to start, I highly recommend the following resources:
- Dana K. White’s Decluttering at the Speed of Life is a super realistic guide for people who are just starting with decluttering.
- For those with some (but maybe not a lot of) decluttering experience, I suggest The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Some people love it, and some people hate it, but the general concepts introduced in the book were (actually) life-changing for me.
- There is also a fun manga version of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up if you want something less tedious. This version is also great if you want an older child or teen to pick up on the magic too.
- I also recommend LearnDoBecome in general. This link goes to a podcast about de-cluttering from them, and they offer many more resources and courses. (I’m working through their STEP course).
Tip 6: Respect the size of your space and stop overfilling it
Naturally organized people don’t have overstuffed drawers in their houses.
Why? Because they understand that stuff should fit in the space assigned to it.
If your kitchen cabinets are overflowing, that mess is likely spilling out onto your counters. And you need to change how you think of your space.
Start seeing the limits of your storage as a limit on your stuff. So get rid of things that don’t fit, stop buying things that won’t fit, and respect your space.
Dana K. White explains this phenomenally in the video below (she calls it “The Container Concept”).
Try this out in your home and it will change everything. You might still have a junk drawer, but things will be better.
Tip 7: Regularly leave your kitchen clean
It can be so hard to clean up your kitchen after each use, especially because you’re there so frequently.
But before you leave your kitchen, it helps a *lot* if put your food away, pick up trash, and gather your dirty dishes. Every. Time. (And I typically wash up all my dishes once per day. See the next tip for more on that.)
Yes, that seems like a lot to expect (can’t you just leave it until later?), but I PROMISE that doing these things on a small scale each time you leave your kitchen will feel WAAAAAY better than taking care of it all later (when it looks like an explosion of gross mess).
So, in summary, doing the little things multiple times a day is much nicer and (I believe) less time-consuming.
Tip 8: Do a nightly reset
The previous tip and the following tips all touch on aspects of this. But, here it is explicitly:
Leave your kitchen 100% clean every night before you go to bed.
Why? Here are my two reasons:
- Doing a reset with NO exceptions keeps the mess at bay forever, because clutter and dirt never have time to build up.
- It feels much better to wake up to a clean kitchen instead of a dirty one (you know what I mean).
In my nightly reset, I unload, do the dishes, wipe the counters/table/stovetop, and sweep the floor. It’s simple, and once I begin, the task goes quickly.
Your reset might look different. But I suggest you commit to trying some form of reset and see what it does for your life.
Tip 9: Have a set time or routine for doing your dishes
You might decide to do your dishes each time you leave your kitchen. Or you might do your dishes once a day (like I currently do).
But the point is, if you make a dish-doing rule and stick to it (whether you have 3 or 50 dishes), you’ll keep Mount Dish Everest from ever happening.
And kitchen life will be so much nicer.
Tip 10: Unload the dishwasher or drainer immediately (OR at a regular, designated time)
Why is it sometimes so hard to do your dishes?
Well, first off, dishes can be gross, and doing them is zero fun for most of us . . .
Second, if the drainer or dishwasher is clean but not unloaded, the dishes magically stop progressing until someone unloads the cleaned dishes.
A full dishwasher or drainer gives you an excuse not to clean more dishes because you “have nowhere to put them.”
So, unload as soon as you can. Or, designate a time to unload (I unload each night before I do my dishes again).
That way your dish progress doesn’t stop.
This rule is a great idea for keeping a clutter-free kitchen.
Tip 11: Clean as you cook
Natural time gaps happen in cooking, and “clean” people know how to fill those time gaps with tidying up.
But the rest of us don’t do this naturally. It may feel as though we don’t have time for it.
However, if you pay attention, you’ll start to notice moments when you can do something. While the meat sears, you can put away spices. And while the water is coming to a boil, you can wash some dishes instead of checking your phone.
The truth is, when I consciously clean up during my food preparation, I do way more in the same amount of time.
I clean spills and wipe up messes. I throw away trash. Sometimes I even sweep up the kitchen floor.
And ultimately, I end my meal prep a much happier camper, because I don’t have an entire kitchen full of dirty counters to tidy after I eat.
Cleaning as I cook is a gift to myself. It lets me relax at mealtimes. And it’s an easy way to maintain my clean kitchen.
Tip 12: Wipe down your counters frequently
Have you ever noticed how your entire kitchen feels waaaay cleaner after a simple wipe-down? Don’t underestimate the power of washing off your counters.
You can use cleaning products, mild dish soap, or just a washcloth wet with water (this varies for me depending on what has been on my counters).
I always end my daily dish-doing with wiping down my kitchen table, counters, and stove. And I typically wipe my table quickly after meals too.
It keeps stuff looking fresh. Try it, and you’ll see.
Tip 13: Once you’ve started something, finish it ASAP
Don’t let your kitchen be where projects go to die.
It’s that simple folks.
Whether it’s the unbaked cookie dough in the fridge from a week ago, the bedazzled picture Jane never finished gluing, or the pile of dishes you’ve started to wash 10 times, you must get unfinished tasks out of your space.
When one task isn’t finished, it becomes clutter that hinders the next task. Just finish what you start, whether it’s chores, service projects, art, etc., and don’t leave it out to collect more clutter.
If Jane needs a spot to put her half-finished bedazzled picture, fine. That’s okay. Make her a spot, but be sure it’s out of the way and not in the open where it can attract more mess.
Tip 14: Make rules for your kitchen and keep them
This, to me, is the absolute best way to have an organized kitchen. This rule is the key to all of the other rules.
Rules, followed on a daily basis, can also be called routines, schedules, or chores. But, ultimately, unloading your dishwasher as soon as it’s clean is a kind of rule. And that rule will keep order.
Choosing to keep nothing but your toaster oven and your knife block on your kitchen counters is a rule.
Ending every day with a clean kitchen is a rule.
Rules for your kitchen create order and calm. Rules are boundaries that our minds can follow and rest in.
And rules keep the chaos from ever happening.
So take these tips and make some rules with them (please!).
If you want some help with where to start, I created a checklist kit with the routines I use in my kitchen IN REAL LIFE. Sometimes I forget them or get behind, but ultimately I come back to them as a realistic way to keep the mess at bay.
Feel free to change or recreate these for personal use as needed. Use them as a jumping-off point for yourself, and get out of the chaos (because I know how heartbreaking being stuck in a mess is!)
Conclusion: Take Baby Steps
I hope you found some great ideas in my article. I truly believe you can keep counters clutter-free and sparkling! (And this is coming from someone who has struggled with mess for years!)
Be patient with yourself. Make rules one at a time, and practice each one before you add another. You can do it! Build up your routines and rules until they keep your kitchen sparkling clean (and you don’t need to do anything extra).
You’ve got this!
Oh, and please feel free to comment, subscribe, and share if you enjoyed my article 🙂
