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Number three. I use baskets and bowls to corral stuff or to make stuff completely invisible. This is the home based thing. Again, contain your kitchen stuff in baskets or bowls or trays. Or even something that makes the things you're storing completely invisible. Here are some examples from my kitchen. Okay, so on our kitchen island we have three different places or containers that never leave the island. The first is a wide ceramic bowl for clementines because we eat a lot of those. And I don't like the red net. The red net is not cute. The bowl is so much prettier. The second thing is this fruit like produce contraption I got from Uncommon Goods ages ago that has like a bowl with. It's like a glass bowl with a wooden lid. But then attached to that wooden lid is a banana hook. So it holds bananas on the hook. You can put produce on the lid cause it's like a little tray. And then you can put more stuff inside the bowl. It's great. And then the third thing on our island at all times is our drink spinner. I have mentioned this before. It is just a lazy Susan, just a regular old wooden lazy Susan that I got at some home store. I don't know, it's nothing special. And that's where all the water bottles and cups live. That is another kitchen element that can take over your house, all the beverages. So having the drink spinner, it gives us a spot for the water bottles to go when people come home and for water cups to live throughout the day when they're not being used. I don't have to even ask the kids to use the drink spinner. It's just how we live. They just put their cups on there automatically, their water bottles and stuff. It's so great now. And so those are the three things on the island that never leave. In other parts of my kitchen I have a basket for all of our pills and like random stuff that we often access throughout the day. Like, like scrap paper, you know, like notepads, weirdly, a tape measure. I feel like we measure stuff all the time. So that's in the basket and that's on one of the counters. There is an old rectangular like planter that I got from a thrift store probably 10 or 15 years ago. I mean, we had it in our last house. And I put mason jars inside that, and it holds my kitchen utensils that's been holding my kitchen utensils for a decade and a half. In front of that planter is a little tray that holds the salt cellar, the pepper grinder, our butter crock, and then this, like, little, tiny. What do they call those little, like, spice pinch dishes. I don't use it for spices. I put my pills on every morning when I make my coffee. I used to have all of those things just out, just, like, on the counter. And the kitchen felt messy. Once I put them all on one tray, it was totally different. And then finally, I have this huge. Oh, my gosh, it's huge. This white bread box. Because the Adachis eat a lot of bread products, and no basket was big enough to hold them all. But before the bread box came, we made it work. I had, like, two smaller baskets, plus this adhesive basket that we hung on the backsplash. But three bread baskets was, like, a lot of bread baskets. So a few months ago, I found this massive metal bread box that was white and perfect, except that it was one of those Rae Dunn products and had bread written on the side, like, the word bread. I'm not a words on my stuff person, so I was really bummed at first when I saw it. Cause I was like, this is so good. And then I thought, kendra, just turn it around. Like, you don't have to have the bread facing out. Just turn the thing around. So that's what I did. And actually, technically, the bread container is sideways because it's so wide. It would take up so much space if it went lengthwise. And so it's sideways. And that's where all of our bread goes. So there is a lot of stuff that's always out in my kitchen. But because it is contained or even made invisible like the bread, it makes the kitchen feel mostly clean. Okay, number four. I rinse pots and pans right after I use them. I hate washing dishes, which is why Cos kindly does it most of the time. Mostly because he's, like, a good partner and just does things. But some of that is because he knows how much I hate it. But in order to make dishwashing for anyone easier, I always rinse the pots and the pans right after using them. I also try to encourage the kids to do that if they are making something like yakisoba or spaghetti or whatever, to rinse out your pan. It saves so much time later, and it Also makes, I know this sounds weird, but it also makes the dirty pans, even when they're like in the sink or even on the counter waiting to be washed, it makes them look like more clean, like visually clean, because they are like, they're not full of gunk and tomato sauce and whatever else. Right? They're mostly cleaned off, they're just not clean. So that's number four. I rinse pots and pans right after I use them. Number five, I don't let other stuff live on the counter. I'm a little relentless about this. Now, I already mentioned all the stuff that does live on the counter and that. Listen, that doesn't include my coffee maker, my electric kettle, our Sonos speaker in the kitchen, the air fryer, the microwave, the paper towels. There's like a lot of things that live on our counters. We have like a small L shaped counter, like kitchen and then an island. So we do have like a reasonable amount of counter space. But our kitchen is not a huge kitchen. Like it's, it's huge. You know what I'm saying? It's all relative, but like it is a, it's like a mid level size kitchen that you would find in sort of most American ranch home. And so we do have like a decent amount of counter space, but not a ton. We've had to be really creative, especially because of all the things that we keep on said counter. So because there is a lot that already lives on our counters, there is not space for anything else. We are at like peak counter saturation. So my kids have learned pretty quickly because if they leave something on the counter, I, I will ask them to find a place for it. Like almost immediately, max, a couple hours. Like that stuff is not staying there. Like for example, the other day I came in from, I came into the house from working and my mom had picked Annie up from school and so she had like all of her school stuff out and she had brought home a deflated basketball, a jump rope, and a T shirt that she had gotten as prizes for reaching like a certain level of money in a school fundraiser or something. And she had left all those things on the kitchen island. Now she showed them to me, you know, she left them out. She showed them to me, but they were on the island. So after she showed them to me, I was like, these are so fun. Can you take them off the counter and find a new place for them? Now the shirt she knew what to do with because she has shirts. She knows to put it in her hamper so we can Wash it. But she. I could tell she was a little like, about the deflated basketball and the jump rope. And so I did suggest. I was like, you know, we got that toy basket. You could put the ball on the rope in there. Because I could tell she wasn't sure what to do. And then she put them away. Now, sometimes we have to help our kids figure out a place for things. But that place, y'all, is not the counter. I don't think the place is the counter. I'm not going to should you about that. But I really think that a lot of our frustration with quote unquote, dirty kitchens is because there are things living on counters that don't need to. Also, if you have things that always end up on the counter, it means they don't have another place. Mail comes to mind. Or just papers in general. If you don't already have a place to put the mail and the papers, you're going to leave them on the counter. And then you're going to be fighting with your gas bill while you're cutting an onion. Find a place for the things on your counter that you don't want to be there. If you want paper help. I just did an episode on paper that was episode 410, how to deal with all the Paper. Also, y'all. I haven't. I have an entire episode on keeping your surfaces clear. If that is something you would like to experience more of in your home and you don't quite know how to think it through, that's episode 209. So that's like over 200 episodes ago. But it's called how to Keep youp Surfaces Clear. And let me use this as a good moment to remind everyone that many of us are not taught nor are naturally wired to think through every single aspect of home, y'all. It's so much stuff, learning how to tend to a home and keep it in a flow and keep it in. It's a lot of things. And you're not just supposed to know how to do things. It's okay if you're like, my counter's always cluttered, and I don't even know where to begin. Be kind to yourself, please. And then you can listen to that episode if you need some help. All right, number six. My kids unload the dishwasher every day. We all have different kitchen rhythms in our homes. And when you start noticing them, when you start paying attention and going, oh, look at that. That is a kitchen rhythm. I didn't even name that yet. And you make those things Work for you. You might actually feel closer to a mostly clean kitchen than you did before. So much of it is our perspective. So anyway, our dishwasher, it has three levels. We run it every night, and then every morning, each kid is responsible for one level. They put away one level as part of their, like, routine before they go to school. Annie and Ben, my two youngest, they do their level without prompting. That's just. They just do it. Sam has adhd, and he cannot neurologically develop habits. Instead, he needs cues and he needs reminders. So most mornings, I'll just remind him. I'm like, hey, do your level, bud. Do your dishwasher level. And he'll go do it. Or I'll put it on a checklist for him if I'm not home when he's getting ready for school. But my kids unload the dishwasher every day. This rhythm of daily dishwashering and then having people designated to unload it at a certain time, it helps our overall kitchen rhythm flow, and it helps keep the kitchen mostly clean, even on the weekends. So, you know, our kids will, like, sleep later. You know, all the things I will like on purpose, ask the kids, like, hey, guys, I need y'all to do your dishwasher level before lunch prep begins at all. Because we can't really do anything while the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, Right? So we even try to preserve that rhythm within reason, on the weekends. Okay, so that's number six. Number seven is I wipe down my counters throughout the day. Now, some of this is easier because I don't let things live on the counters and because the dirty dishes zone exists. Right? But because of that, it's pretty common for me to have a clear kitchen island when I am not actively cooking. And when it's clear, I wipe it down. That helps the kitchen feel more clean. If you see a kitchen counter that is clear of items but is still covered in, like, crumbs and, you know, condensation from, like, cups or whatever, there's the smudge of, like, peanut butter or sunbutter from the sandwich making, like, the kitchen doesn't feel as clean as it could. You can't really do anything on a counter that's not cleaned off anyway, so. Yeah. Cause you're gonna get some butter on your stuff. So I regularly wipe down the counters. I have a favorite spray. It's like a method granite cleaner, since our counters are granite. And then I also have those reusable paper towels that I use one of those to wipe it down. In fact, I usually just drape the towel over the bottle of cleaner, and then I will put the bottle back under the sink. So we use that to wipe off the counters for, like, a couple of days. And then we'll trade out that reusable paper towel. We'll wash it and get a different one. But it's so quick to do. Wiping down the counters is so quick to do, especially if the counters are already clear. And it, like, I cannot communicate how much of a difference it makes in our kitchen and how my kitchen feels when the counters are actually cleaned. So I clean them throughout the day. Number eight, I reset the kitchen every night. Okay, Reset does not mean that I put away all the clean dishes. I already said that there are still bowls from several days ago out in the thing, but they're contained. They're where the clean dishes live. So it's fine. Resetting the kitchen is what I need. It's getting the kitchen to a place where I don't feel stressed when I'm gonna enter the kitchen the next morning. Right, it's ready for me. So in general, the way it usually works for us, Kaz cleans up after dinner most nights, and the boys will help him. And I go and get Annie ready for bed. So when I come into our main living area after putting Annie to bed, the dishwasher is usually loaded and, like, set to run. The dirty dishes are washed or they are, like, rinsed, and they're just contained in the sink, which is great. I don't mind that. And we'll wash them the next day or whatever. It doesn't matter. And the food is put away. Now, again, the counters are usually clear because we have places for most things that would clutter the counters. So resetting is making sure those counters are clear. But it's really doing the things that Kaz rarely remembers to do or cares as much about doing. And that's okay. When he cleans up the kitchen, he doesn't really wipe off the counters. So I wipe down the counters, y'all. He always leaves the dish soap out on the counter. It has become, like, a bit at this point. It is so funny. So I will put the dish soap away under the sink. He, like, just doesn't see it. It cracks me up. I will push the kitchen chairs into the table. I. That feels good to me for the kitchen chairs to be, like, aligned under the table rather than, you know, kind of haphazardly, like, we all just got out of them. I'll put away the items that cause. And the kids like, didn't notice, which, that's fine too, because they don't often notice as much as I do. And then I will vacuum the kitchen floor. All of that, wiping down the counters, putting away the straggling things, and vacuuming the kitchen floor. Three minutes max. It's so quick. But that reset makes the whole kitchen feel clean, even if there are still dirty pots in the sink. And it makes the next morning feel so much better. So I reset the kitchen every night. And then. And that's again, that's my own definition of reset. You get to decide what that would mean for you if you chose to do that. And then number nine, I notice what's not working and I make small changes. This is all of these other things are daily things. This one's not as daily. The noticing could be daily. But you notice what's not working and you make small changes. Okay, let's talk about the bread box again. This is a great example. It started out I would have just bags of bread laying around on the counter. Like we have. We love Trader Joe's sliced sourdough. 3.3/5 of the family love that stuff. The other two fifths of the family, they don't. They just want a different kind of bread. Well, then we also have, like, sandwich bread. Then we have hot dog buns, because of course we have hot dog buns. And then sometimes I'll get those brioche rolls from Aldi to make, like, fun sandwiches for lunch. They're quite tasty. And that's not like the little box of donuts we might get. Or I made cookies or, you know, it's just like the carbs. We have so many in our house. We would just have bags of bread laying around. And that just wasn't working for me. It wasn't working. No, I didn't, I didn't, like, panic. I didn't threaten the family that we're going to go gluten free because I couldn't take all the bread. You know, I just got a basket that we already had. I know that containment matters. That helps a lot. So I went and found a basket in like a random closet in my house and I put all the bread in it. Now, the bread didn't all fit, but it was a little better. Right. And I lived that way for a while. Later on I got had the idea of like, oh, maybe I could get one of those, like, little sticky shelves, a little wire basket to stick to the backsplash to put on the wall. And that could hold some of the Bread. And those two things did help for a little while. They helped it. It was a little better than everything just being out, but it still wasn't quite my ideal. The problem that I was able to identify was just like all the plastic and color coming from the bread bags and they were just like poking out in different directions or whatever. I realized I wanted the bread to be invisible. I wanted it to be invisible. Plus, we also had multiple places. Like I said, we had a couple baskets. We had the little one on the wall. We had several places where you would keep bread. And the family didn't always know where to look for what they needed. So I also was like, gosh, I wish we just had like one spot where we could put all the bread. It would hold everything, but it would also make the bread invisible. So I kept an eye out for something to do the trick. Cause even like buying a brand new bread box, it still was just not enough space. Cause I had tried that before. Anyway, I found this white bread box that I mentioned before weeks and weeks and weeks later when I was at Goodwill. It took a long time, but now I have a bread solution that works really, really well. So notice what's not working and then make small changes. Don't turn everything upside down or resent your kitchen or your people. You don't have to. You can wait, you know, you don't have to fix it right away. Just look at what's not working, identify a way to make the problem smaller, and then just take one tiny step, just one small step to make it better and let it take however long it takes, you know? And then finally, number 10, I make the visible things pretty. So I had the clementines in a plastic bowl for a while and it was fine. But then I found this beautiful, wide, white ceramic bowl at Goodwill for $6. And I snatched that puppy up so fast. I was so excited because the bowl is so much prettier now. Right? I like that our drink spinner is wood instead of plastic, because I find the wood to be very pretty. The pills in the kitchen were at one point in like this shapeless, dingy fabric basket. And it worked fine, but it wasn't as pretty. Now they are in a basket that functions more like a crate, you know, like, it's. It's got edges, like it doesn't move. And it's also just a lot prettier. It's like wire and woven, and it's. It's beautiful. The bread box is way prettier as just a white container rather than an Overflowing basket of red and blue plastic bags. So I still have. Listen, I still have all the same things living in the same spaces. But the containers for those things, the trays they sit on, the drying basket the dishes live in, they're all prettier. This is another thing that the nester says one of her house rules is if it's out, it's decoration. If it's out, if you can see it, it's decoration. So make the things that are out as pretty as you can. Like, I got a glass hand soap dispenser because it's out and it's prettier than the plastic one that you just buy that sits in the kitchen. We keep our dishwashing sponge and scrubber out in, like, a basket attached to the wall above the sink. Because they're out, they're decoration. So guess what? I buy white or cream sponges. I do not buy the green and yellow ones. And our, like, dish scrubby guy, the pot scrubby thing, it's like cream and wood. It's not a bright color. Now, that would be fine if you picked a bright color, but that sort of thing is so helpful. I love that house rule from the nester because you're like, oh, wait, if it's out, it is kind of a decoration. So let's move towards making things prettier. I do wish my kids had more muted tastes in water bottle choices because those are out on the drink spinner all the time. And there are some harsh colors just sitting out there. Like, Ben's is a Kansas City Chiefs water bottle. So that's like, we're always decorating with a Kansas City Chiefs water bottle. But it's okay. Like, I don't mind. I don't mind that so much. I've also heard people talk about their fridges. That stuff on the fridge is decoration and can be even, like, cluttered decoration. So having a clear fridge is something you could do. We don't do that because that doesn't matter enough to me. I also actually really love the photos we have on our fridge. And you know this. If you listen to my paper episode, the fridge is where we keep the most urgent papers. So we do use our fridge, but maybe you don't as much and you're like, you know what? I actually think it might be really nice if I clean off all the things off the front of my fridge. I think that might make my kitchen feel more clean. So you can do that if you want. So a clean kitchen, y'all. It is relative and we all live differently. If you make a lot of your food from scratch, you have more dishes to hand wash than I do. If you homeschool or your kids are just home throughout the day, you're going to have more dishes throughout the day than I do. If you don't have a dishwasher and you have to wash everything by hand, your rhythms will look different than mine. The point, as we know, is not for you to do what I'm doing. It's not for you to copy things. It's more to show you how. The things that I do and the things that you observe other people doing when you're in their homes, those things contribute well to how a specific family can operate in the kitchen. Mostly clean on a daily basis is something that matters to me for my own stress levels and for just my practical enjoyment in the kitchen. So it's okay for me to put more genius energy into keeping it that way. Other parts of the house, not so much. But the kitchen really does matter to me, so that means I'm going to give it more energy. Okay? So you can do the same for your own kitchen. So to recap the 10 things that I do to keep my kitchen mostly clean. I have a place for dirty dishes. I have a place for clean dishes. I use baskets and bowls and trays to corral stuff or even to make them invisible. I rinse pots and pans right after they are used. I don't let other stuff live on the counter. My kids unload the dishwasher every day, which really is just about maintaining kitchen rhythms. I wipe down the counters throughout the day. I reset the kitchen every night. I notice what isn't working and make small steps to make it better. And I make the visible things pretty. And that's how I keep my kitchen mostly clean. Okay, if you have been feeling overwhelmed by your kitchen recently and you need a new framework, like even beyond this episode, I wrote a whole book, a whole book on how to lazy genius your kitchen. It's called, you guessed it, the Lazy Genius kitchen. It's not a cookbook. It's not even an organizational book, really. It's a kitchen lifeline. It deep dives all the aspects of your kitchen that don't live in cookbooks or organizational books, but they're vital for how your kitchen operates. You will learn the Lazy Genius method, which is five steps to help you. Lazy genius anything, particularly the areas of your kitchen that have you feeling a little. A little drowny. You know, it's illustrated. It's so cute. It's hardcover, it's full color. It's like, it's got the coolest appendix around with, like, lots of hacks and lists and help to make your kitchen work for you. If cost is an issue, it's usually around 11 bucks on Amazon. And that's the hardcover. Like, it's usually marked very low on Amazon. Now, if you have extra cash and you would like to support an indie or a different retailer, it'll be worth every penny of the $26 cover price. So that is the Lazy Genius kitchen. Have what you need, use what you have, and enjoy it like never before. Okay, before we go, let's celebrate the Lazy Genius of the week. This week, it's Anya Gates. Anya writes a decide once in our house is Wing It Wednesday. I do all my meal planning on Thursdays and try to do grocery shopping on Saturdays. So Wednesday night dinner is Wing It Wednesday, where I pull out all the food that has a limited shelf life and any leftovers. My partner and I both make our own meals using the food I've taken out and some pantry staples. If we have creative energy, we can come up with something new. Like, we're playing Chopped. If we don't, it's a night of reheating what we can and making mismatched dinners. The decision helps. My priority of minimizing food waste and my partner's priority of getting to have a free night in the kitchen to play with food. Well, this is magical in every way. First, I always love a reminder that a meal planning rhythm does not have to be weekend to weekend. So often we get caught up in that convention. But y'all, we do not have to be caught up in that convention. Anya and her partner go Thursday to Thursday because it works. That's so great. And of course, we all love the chopped energy here. Like, it was so great. What a fun adventure to look forward to every Wing It Wednesday. I bet a lot of you listening are like, I want Wing It Wednesday. This is great. Such a great idea with a really fun name that serves specific priorities that matter. So well done, Anya. Thank you for sharing and congratulations. Congratulations on being the Lazy Genius of the week. This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, an executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. Thanks, y'all, for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra, and I'LL see you next week. I've been counted out, dismissed, passed over. Told I'd never be a golfer with just one arm. But the only thing that feels better than proving people wrong is out driving them. I'm 14 year old golfer Tommy Morrissey and I want to be remembered for.
