996 | Better This Week: Your Kitchen - The Rachel Hollis Podcast

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[00:00]
Rachel Hollis
The teacher's pet that will forever live inside my heart. Always loves Back to School. And while my own children might not feel the same way about it that I do, I love this time of year. I love getting new school supplies. What backpacks are we going to take? And getting your back to school shoes. When I was a kid, you got one pair of shoes a year. So the Back to school shoes, huge deal. And if you are in the market for your own pair of back to school shoes, Famous Footwear makes it easy to get ready for the school year with great shoes at great prices. You can find brands like Jordan, Nike, Adidas, Birkenstocks for the hippies like me, New Balance, Skechers, I mean, you name it, Famous Footwear has got it right now it's bogo. Buy one pair, get one half off at Famous Footwear. Shop in store to get $10 to spend this fall. Some exclusions apply. Plus join famous rewards to get Famous Footwear's best benefits, including free shipping. I love my phone but not my carrier.
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Rachel Hollis
So I wouldn't have to buy a new phone?
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[01:40]
Rachel Hollis
Last year we remodeled our house. We had bought like a hundred year old Spanish style house in Los Angeles and we had the brilliant idea that we would remodel this house while we lived in it. It wasn't just a brilliant idea, it was actually just required. Like we couldn't afford two mortgages at once. So we bought this house, we lived in it, we went completely down to the studs. And some of you were there for the saga that happened in the aftermath. If you've ever remodeled something, you know how hard it is to live inside of. There's dust, there's rat poop everywhere. It's so awful. But without a doubt, without a doubt, the worst part of that experience was not having a kitchen. Like we had a plastic sink, like a utility sink that we found at Home Depot and we set it up in the backyard with a garden hose and that was our kitchen sink. We used our grill. We had a refrigerator in the backyard. We could do this because it was la and it never rains there, so we had a fridge in the backyard. It was so, so awful. And it lasted for months and months and months. And I don't even like to remember that time period because it was so hard for our family. But I think it is a really good foundation for today's conversation about the importance of the kitchen. Whether you love to cook as much as we do, or maybe you barely cook at all. I have never been inside of a house where the kitchen wasn't the center of everything. The kitchen is the heart of the home, and so many things about the rest of your life are influenced by your kitchen. So when you put more time and intention into the setup of your kitchen, I think that that time really pays off. I think it spills over into other areas of your life. And I think we should talk about how to make your kitchen better this week. Every single Wednesday, I bring you an episode based around the idea that you can pick one area of your life and do a few things that will actually improve the quality before this time next week, and I think we tackle the kitchen. Your kitchen is the room that you interact with more than any other room in your house, Full stop. I am convinced you're in there more than you're in your closet. You're in there more than you're in your bathroom. You are in there when you're fully awake, when you're half asleep. You are in there when you're exhausted, when you're feeling your best. Like, your kitchen shows up in your life so often. And if the kitchen is a mess, if the kitchen is chaos, if the kitchen is organized or completely disorganized, all of those things really do affect every other area of your day. I really think the kitchen is the room in your house that you could invest a little time in. This week. You could fix one or two things about your kitchen and really feel a significant difference. So today isn't a philosophical kind of episode. Today is a list. Today are four areas. Small, tiny little upgrades or systems that are going to save you some time, that are going to make eating healthy actually easy, instead of a whole dramatic production and I think will help you build a kitchen that serves your real life. Not the Pinterest thing that you have pinned, but the real life you are currently living. Let's create a kitchen that really helps you to thrive. Let's start with getting organized now, before you freak out, before you're like, I don't have time. I'm exhausted. The idea of organizing my kitchen makes me want to die. Fine. I'm going to give you four ideas. Just pick one. But there might not be a better idea on this list than organizing the kitchen if it isn't currently in an organized state. I am talking to you. If you currently have eight of the same spatula, but you never use more than one, I'm talking to you. If your junk drawer is like all the drawers, I'm talking to you. If all your silverware is just thrown into one drawer. No. No lines in between. No organization whatsoever. If you can't find things in your kitchen, if there's no rhyme or reason to where anything is now I will. I know some people have brains that work a little bit differently than everybody else's. Shout out to my ADHD friends. And if it's your kitchen and it makes sense to your brain and you know exactly where the Tupperware is, even though it's weirdly stored inside of the freezer, if that works for you, keep on trucking. But for everybody else who knows that the kitchen is a mess knows that when you open those cabinet doors or when you go into the pantry, it's crazy town. But the idea of organizing things has so overwhelmed you that it's like the monster under the bed and it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and so you just don't touch it because it feels like too much. It's time that we look under the bed and see that the monster isn't actually that big a deal. Have you seen that gal on social media who does the videos called? It's something like how long does it actually take? It's a really smart idea. She goes to her friends houses who have been putting something off for weeks or months or sometimes years, and she helps them do the thing that they've been avoiding, like organize their closet or get rid of junk or finish their dissertation. And the beautiful thing about that video series is that it is never as long as the people think it will take. It ends up being hours. And some people have been putting things off for years. So I wonder if this is particularly aimed at those of you who need to be reminded that it's not going to take you until Christmas. It's probably going to take you one solid weekend day to get your kitchen in order, and it is going to make you feel like a million bucks. A couple ideas for those of you who are willing to to embrace the organization you know you need to do. Number one. I believe that the kitchen should be organized by the person who uses it the most. In my case, in my home, that is actually my husband. My husband Kez cooks six out of seven dinners. Truly, he loves to cook. My joke is that that he really enjoys it. And at this point in my parenting career, not my favorite thing to do. I'm like, well, you came into our lives when I was 13 years into cooking dinner every night, and you can take it from here, man. Like, you go ahead.
[09:11]
T-Mobile Representative
You.
[09:11]
Rachel Hollis
You cook all the meals. So because he is the one who is cooking more than I am, there are choices about where pans are or pots are or different things are located. That would not be my choice, y'. All. It would not be my choice. And the control freak in me wants to say, no, the knife drawer shouldn't be here. The knife drawer should be there. But he uses it more than I do, and therefore he gets a choice about where things are located. That being said, I have very strong opinions on how things are organized within the spot that they are located. So I love a drawer organizer. I love, you know, a cubby. I like things that divide spaces. So everything has a spot and there's a spot for everything. And I would like to say that I have enjoyed this type of organization since I was in my very first apartment, since I was living on my own in a one bedroom in Burbank, down the street from the Poquito Moss. If you know, you know. But even back then, when I couldn't afford drawer organizers, I would use small boxes. I would use, like, remember checkbooks? Remember checks, guys? I would use the box that my checks came in, and I would use that to organize the drawers. Like, I would find little boxes or little Tupperware, little things, and I would put them inside of the drawers just to help things stay in their own spot. Rule number one for me, whoever uses the kitchen most, if they have a strong opinion about where things go, I think don't fight them, just go with it. And number two, within the space that each of those things belong, have some organization inside of them. Not the same topic, but one of my favorite things in the whole wide world are those drawer dividers that are sort of like spring loaded. They're for your closet, but if you can find ones that are small enough to go inside your kitchen drawers, I say you go for it. Because the problem is that all of our drawers are different sizes, and the drawer organizers that you can buy don't always fit. So just do what you can. But I love having organization inside of each spot. And if you've got a little budget, if you got a little money to throw this way, don't go for the full renovation. Don't go for the, you know, I'm going to redo the backsplash. I love that idea for you. But if your kitchen isn't full functional, making it prettier is not going to help anything. In fact, it's actually just going to add chaos in the short term. Much better to get it functional, to get it to a place that you can really utilize it well and then make it pretty. Basically, I want you to make it pretty on the inside before you focus on pretty on the outside. Kind of the same for us as humans. So we're going to get organized. We're going to look for ways to. To make the kitchen as functional as possible for us. My last thing that I will add to this mix that I really do swear by, because I think it makes a difference, is beautiful containers so that you see the things that you need to be using. If you've ever seen one of my older YouTube videos where I talk about how I organize the kitchen, I will show you different glass canisters. I will show you mason jars. I will show you all sorts of things that I have where I take the rice, the oatmeal, the nuts, the pasta. Like all the things that people typically keep in their pantry, I put in pretty jars, and I put them on the countertop, and these are things I've collected over time. If you've got the budget for it, you can go to Target, Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Container Store. If you don't have the budget, keep your eye out at yard sales. Keep your eye out at the Goodwill or flea markets. You can find so much great stuff in the brick brac section at goodwill that costs $1.99. You can collect it over time. And it really does help to display the food that you need to use up. If you have a bad habit of grocery shopping for things and then them going bad before you can use them, Any of those goods that you can actually store on the counter so that you don't forget they're there. If you is such a move, I really love it. I think it makes the kitchen prettier, but I also think it makes it very functional. So number one thing that will improve your kitchen this week is to get it organized. If you feel overwhelmed with the idea of organizing the whole thing, you know what I'm going to say? Organize one single part. Maybe it's one drawer, maybe it's the refrigerator, maybe it's the pantry. Maybe it's one cabinet, but start with one area. I tend to think that when you have success in one area makes you feel good and it motivates you to do more. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp has been an ad partner of mine since the beginning of my podcast that's going all the way back to 2017. And there's a reason why I believe in this brand so much, because I know the power of therapy. And the easier we make it for people to access a therapist, the easier we make it for people to get help that changes their life. So if you've heard about therapy with BetterHelp, let's take it a step further and let's look to see how much people love it when they use it. You can see for yourself by checking out the amazing customer reviews that are updated every single day@betterhelp.com reviews. If you check those out, you're going to find hundreds of people who are sharing how the experience of therapy with better help has helped them. If you haven't tried it yet, better help makes it so easy to find a therapist and get started. You answer a few questions and you'll get matched with someone right away. And just like when you're dating, if for some reason you don't like your therapist, you can change really easily. You're in good hands. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if Better Help is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com Rach that's betterhelp H-E-L-P.com Rach I love my phone but not my carrier.
[16:08]
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[16:17]
Rachel Hollis
So I wouldn't have to buy a new phone?
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[16:38]
Rachel Hollis
Second thing I'm going to recommend that you do to improve your kitchen this week is create some systems that will save you time. There's no money that you need to spend for this one, it's just you spending some time to put thought into how your kitchen actually operates. So the first suggestion I'm going to make here is that you create zones in your kitchen, not just organizing for organizing sake. So what I mean is that most of us tend to organize our kitchen by category rather than how we actually use those items. So we put all the spices in one spot and all the mugs in another spot, and maybe all the baking stuff goes over here. And it sounds super logical, but it's not actually how you use the room. We don't cook by category. We cook by task. So, for instance, in my kitchen, all of my coffee stuff is in one corner of the kitchen. My espresso machine is there, my coffee pot is there, My whole beans are there, my grinder's there, my ground coffee is there, my filters are there, my mugs are there. You get the concept. It's all in one place because I'm going to make coffee all in that one area, and I don't want to be walking around my kitchen at 5am grabbing filters from one spot, mugs from another, and coffee grounds from somewhere else. So it all goes in one single spot. All of my smoothie materials, meaning the shaker bottles, the supplements, the protein powder, the creatine, the collagen, all of that stuff is in the same place. Even though bottles wouldn't necessarily make sense with supplements, because I use all of that stuff at the same time. They're all in the same cabinets. You don't have to redo the organization of your whole kitchen. If you think in terms of, like, the biggest moments that you use your kitchen for during the day and then organize cabinets around those moments, it really does improve the functionality of everything else. Okay, so that's number one, organizing by zone. Number two in the systems front is a nightly reset. I've talked to y' all about this before, and I stand by this idea. We do not go to bed with dishes in the sink. Ever, ever, ever. We do not go to bed with dishes in the sink. The easiest way to do this is just once you have dinner, you do the dishes immediately. I know that's not always easy. I know that you're tired. If there's a better way for you to lay out your evening routine, great. But do not leave dishes in your sink to come back to the next morning. All you're doing is sacrificing tomorrow's peace for today's comfort, like you are sabotaging you tomorrow morning when you wake up. You want to start the day strong. You want to start the day fresh. You want to feel really good about what's happening today. And you go in your kitchen and it's a disaster, and it's smells funky, and there's ants crawling on the dishes from last night. Do not put yourself in that situation set yourself up for success. This is one of those tasks that does not take as long as you think it does. Do not leave dishes in the sink overnight. And I'm going to even add one more element to this that might throw some of you off. I try my absolute hardest in life not to use things that are disposable. My napkins, my dishcloths, my plates, silverware, all of it. I wash it, I put it away. But I also understand that there are times in life where, for whatever reason, you don't have the capacity for dishes. Maybe you're a new parent. Maybe you're dealing with depression, Maybe you're exhausted. I honestly don't care what the reason is. Maybe this is a season where you need some paper plates. If you are in a season right now where you are feeling super overwhelmed by doing dishes, find a way to not do them. Like, just make it easier on yourself so that you are not setting yourself up for unnecessary stress. But every single night, we want to make sure the dishes are done, whether they're in the dishwasher, whether you've washed them by hand, whatever. Wipe down the counter, take out the trash if you can. Like, just do a nightly reset so you come into a clean kitchen in the morning. I also think this is a really important habit to teach your kids. We have a chore chart on the fridge, and a different kid is responsible for the dishes and or the trash every single night of the week, during the day, all day long, especially here in the summer, I'm doing the dishes or my husband's doing the dishes. We're constantly keeping the kitchen clean. But after dinner, the dinner dishes, except for a couple nights a week where we slot in, one of the kids is responsible for those dishes, or one of those kids is responsible for taking out the trash. Noah, still, she's nine, so she's super helpful. She can't do it entirely on her own. So on the night that it's Noah's dishes, she's paired with one of her brothers so that they can help her do the task. We actually just had some friends over for dinner this weekend, and they saw the chore chart. It happened to be Saturday, which is the day of the week where we cook the biggest dinner. And on Saturday, all the kids work together on the dishes, because there tend to be a lot more dishes than normal on a Saturday. And after dinner was done, I was like, all right, guys, clear the table, and then we're gonna have dessert. And all the kids stood up, and they started clearing the table and the people that we had over for dinner. The adults were like, what is happening? I'm like, oh, oh, it's their night for dishes. And she's like, no, I, I, I've just never seen kids who didn't. They didn't complain at all. They didn't say anything. They just did it. I'm like, well, yeah, because they know. Because it's just a habit. In our family, if you establish these routines, even if you don't have kids, you don't have family, you live by yourself. If you establish the routine for yourself, it's going to feel normal. And if you establish this routine when your kids are young, it will feel normal to them. Someone asked me on an Ask Rach several months ago, like, how they could get the kids involved and how they could get their kids to help with chores without complaining. And I think the biggest piece of advice I have is normalize it. Don't make it some big, dramatic thing. We do chores as a family, all of us do. And my kids see me and my husband, we do way more than they will ever even think about doing. So it's just a normal thing. In our house, whether you have kids or not, cleaning up should be a normal thing. Third piece of advice for how you can get your kitchen under control and in line this week. This one's me. Not everyone's going to give you this advice, but I think if we're setting up our kitchen, we should set up our kitchen to make it easier for us to stay on our nutritional plan. Whatever your goals are for your nutrition, your kitchen can assist you or your kitchen can sabotage you. I think this is the section that matters most to me because there is so much advice out there when it comes to health that assumes that we have way more discipline and more willpower and more information than we actually do. Like, I really think when it comes to the kitchen, you have to set yourself up for success, and that means that you don't sabotage yourself. One of the most basic rules I have for the kitchen, it really works, is do not bring things into your kitchen that you don't want to be eating, period. Do not think that you are just magically going to have the willpower to not eat the entire box of Chips Ahoy Chewy. Like, don't do that to yourself. I have never had that kind of willpower. If it is in my house, I am going to eat it. The exception to that rule is if there's certain kinds of junk food that the kids really love. And it's like this treat that they get to have, but I don't care about it at all. Like, I'm not a. I'm not a candy kind of person. I don't really care about candy. If you have candy in front of me, like it literally not tempted at all, don't care. I will not find myself in the kitchen at 11 o' clock at night eating your gummy worms. But if you bring chips into my house, if we have some tortilla chips and some guac, if we've got potato chips, like anything like that, I am going to accidentally sabotage myself. I have no control. Like, especially if I'm hormonal, get outta my way. I'm eating the chips. So just as a rule, I don't bring them into the house. Or for instance, it was feast day on Saturday. We cooked all of these elaborate things. We brought stuff into the house we wouldn't normally eat. And then I'm only buying enough for that dinner. I'm not buying extra. And if there's extra left over, like, we did a big grill, we did a big cookout this weekend, and we had salt and vinegar chips, which I absolutely love. And there was like one third of a bag left and I threw them away. And maybe other people, maybe you think that's wasteful or you think that's ridiculous, but, like, my kids don't need that either. It's a treat. Those kinds of things are not everyday food. It's full of sodium, it's fried. Like it's all the things. That's something that we have sparingly. We don't have access to it every day of our lives. So as a rule of thumb, do not bring it into your house if you don't want to be tempted by it. If you are bringing it to your house, buy it in small quantities for special occasions and get rid of it once you're done. And I will add something crazy. I have been known for myself to sabotage food. So I will not dig it out of the trash. Now, that's not something I've done in a very long time. But when I was younger, I would throw like half a box of donuts away and then an hour later I'd be like, well, they're in the box. I know they're in the trash, but they're in the box. So I have. I will pour like liquid soap. When I was younger, I would pour like liquid soap on stuff so that I wouldn't dig it out of the trash. And if you think I'm A mole person and a weirdo. I mean, you can think that because I am. I really like junk food and I have to really fight myself to not go after it. Those precious, magical moments you'll always cherish at Disney Cruise Line, we cherish them too. Make the memories that never leave you. Disney Cruise Line where magic meets the
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[28:48]
Rachel Hollis
So that's what we're going to do to keep junk food out of our house. The other thing that we can do to set ourselves up for more nutritional success is, is keep the foods that you want to eat front and center. This is going along with what I said about putting your healthy staples inside of canisters on the countertop. But I would also say that you can set up your fridge with the same idea. So we want to make it as easy as possible to stay on our nutritional plans. And one of the ways that you can do that is to prep your snacks. So if you go to the store and let's say you get veggies and you get fruit and different things, as soon as you come home from the store, prep those vet like let's say you got a bunch of cucumber and some bell pepper because you love to eat those raw, wash those immediately, chop them up, put them in a container, put them front and center in your refrigerator. So every single time you open the fridge, that's the first thing that you see. Kind of goes along with the same idea of not for the kitchen, but for life. Always having healthy snacks in your bag. I'm a big believer in always being prepared to be hungry. I would love it if I always had exactly the right amount of food and I never got hungry between meals. But that is not reality. Reality is sometimes I get hungry and then I get hangry. And if I don't have a great snack in my bag, I'm either going to make a terrible choice while I'm out in the world or I'm going to get home and be famished and then eat everything in sight. So set your kitchen up to support what you're trying to do nutritionally, whether it's prepping those snacks or even prepping things to make it easier to cook healthy dinners throughout the week. All right. Third piece of advice for nutritional organization of your kitchen is always having things stocked in your kitchen that will allow you to stay on plan. So pick one healthy meal that takes you almost no time and requires no decision making and tastes good enough that you will actually reach for it. So for me, this is things like eggs. I always have canned beans in the pantry. I cannot tell you how often I eat canned beans with some diced chilies and some cholula and two fried eggs. I probably eat that four days a week for at least one meal. I've got good fiber, I've got slow burning carbs, I've got protein, I've got some spice from the cholula. All of those things can stay in my fridge or my pantry and they last a really long time and they're very quick for me to make. I also keep frozen spinach in the freezer, so I'll grab a couple handfuls of that and toss it into the beans while they cook. And now I've got even more greens and goodness going on in this bowl, but I have it all the time. It's my go to meal. What is yours if it's like a frozen dinner or like a pre packaged like, I don't care what it is, I just care that you have something. So you're saving yourself the guesswork and you know that it's going to allow you to stay on plan and it's going to keep you full and it's not going to have you driving to Taco Bell at 10 o' clock at night. Fourth thing that you can do this week to get that kitchen in line is to remember that the kitchen is there to serve you. This is your kitchen. And the more you can set this kitchen up to support the life you actually have and the life you actually want to live, the better off you'll be. For instance, I know all about those pretty kitchens on Pinterest. I know all about them. And I know that there are things that I did earlier in my journey to health that were not pretty but really helped me. Things like keeping my blender on the counter, along with all of the supplements that would go into my green smoothie, because if I saw it every day, I would actually have it instead of ignoring the fact that all of those ingredients were in a pantry somewhere. So there were choices that I made that supported the life I wanted to have, not just the pretty kitchen I wanted to have. The closer you can get that kitchen to serving your purposes the better off you're gonna be. Design the kitchen for the real you, not the aspirational you. And. And I will go both ways with this, too. A lot of us are setting up our kitchen for the person we wish we were. So maybe for you, you're the opposite of me. Maybe you've got the juicer on the counter because you really want to be the person who juices. Or maybe you have way too much stuff for meal prepping. You want to be the mom that meal preps on Sunday. Or maybe you're wasting three cabinets on baking supplies because you want to be the person who makes bread from scratch, but you're never going to be those things. Whatever the kitchen is, let it be your kitchen. Because I think we believe it will be motivational for us to see the juicer on the counter in the same way that we think it will be motivational if we keep the jeans that are three sizes too small. It's not. It just makes you feel worse about yourself. So let the kitchen either be something that reminds you, like, is the habit stacking that you need, like me with my green smoothie equipment, or let it be clear of things that are making you feel bad about yourself. You don't need to be a juicer. You don't need to make your bread from scratch. You can buy both those things at the grocery store. You can get the results that you're looking for without beating yourself up for how you get there. It does not help you to feel like a failure every single time you open a cabinet. Like, the kitchen doesn't need to be reminding you of someone that you are not. So look at how you actually cook right now. Look at how you actually use that room right now. Not how you did it five years ago and not how you hope to do it 10 years from now. Set up the kitchen around the truth. If you eat the same six meals on rotation, build a kitchen around those six meals. I have a pantry section that has approximately 30 cans of beans in it. And right next to Those beans are 30 cans of diced green chilies. Like, I have a section of my pantry that has 25 containers of pistachio milk. Now, that one was an accident. I thought I was supposed to order the pistachio milk, and Kez thought he was supposed to order the pistachio milk, and we both ordered a massive supply of pistachio milk because that's what we like in our coffee. And we don't live near a cute little coffee house anymore, so we have to make our own. But my point is, the kitchen is set up for the stuff that we use over and over and over. And if you open our pantry right now, you wouldn't see see massive diversity. You'd be like, whoa, these people really like beans and pistachio milk. A kitchen that serves your actual life and is built for the person who's going to walk into it every morning. That is important. The vision board can wait. The vision board can follow you just figuring out how to live your days in a more successful way. And look, this is going to look different for every single person who's listening to this. Like, if you're super into cooking like Kez is, you're going to have a completely different kitchen than someone who likes to cook one meal and then eat leftovers all week long. If you barely cook at all and you love to order some takeout, your kitchen's going to look really different than mine. But be honest about the things that can live inside of that space that will make you feel supported, that will allow you to practice self care, that will allow you to slow down, that will allow you to show up for yourself. Give yourself permission to actually admit who you are and allow the kitchen to be reflective of that. Okay, quick recap. Pick one thing that you can do this week to improve the state of your kitchen. We're going to look for ways that we can get organized in a way that feels accurate to who we are and how we actually use the space. We're going to zone our kitchen instead of just organizing it. So we're going to organize by how we use things, not just what we use. We're going to commit to a nightly reset. We do not leave dishes in the sink. We do not leave dirty countertops. We do not leave trash that's smelling up the place. We want the kitchen we walk into tomorrow to set us up for success. So that means we need to do some extra work tonight to set us up for success in the morning. Next. We want that kitchen to support our healthy habits. Keep it front and center. If it's healthy, leave it out of the house if it's not, always have at least one thing that you can make easily that will allow you to stay on plan, and that will last for a while. So it's always there, no matter what. Last piece of advice. We want the kitchen to be designed for who we are and the life that we have and the direction we want to head to. Not for some fantasy mythical version of the perfect mom or the perfect dad or the perfect person or the perfect college student or whatever other crazy title you think you're supposed to be. Let's just be ourselves and create a home that supports it. Let's let the kitchen be a little bit easier, a little bit more hours, and let's do it in one small fix at a time so that it doesn't overwhelm us, but actually makes our life feel better. I hope that this episode of Better this Week gave you some ideas about what you can do to improve the heart of every home. I will be back soon with more conversations just like this one. Until then, as always, I love you and I'm rooting for you. The rachel hollis podcast is produced by me, rachel hollis. It's edited by andrew weller and jack noble.
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Summary6 min read

The Rachel Hollis Podcast
Episode 996: Better This Week—Your Kitchen
Date: August 5, 2026
Host: Rachel Hollis

Episode Overview

In this practical and motivational episode, Rachel Hollis focuses on the heart of the home: the kitchen. Drawing from personal experience—including the chaos of remodeling her own kitchen while living in it—Rachel illustrates how making even small changes in your kitchen’s organization and systems can significantly boost your wellbeing and make your daily life easier. Rather than aiming for Pinterest-worthy perfection, Rachel’s advice centers on building a kitchen that supports who you genuinely are, making it functional, personalized, and a foundation for healthier habits. She outlines four actionable areas to tackle—organization, time-saving systems, nutritional setups, and designing for your real life—offering both realistic encouragement and tactical tips anyone can implement this week.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Kitchen as the Heart of the Home (03:00 – 05:10)

Rachel recounts the months spent without a functional kitchen during a remodel, underscoring how central the kitchen is to family life and daily routines.
Quote:

"The kitchen is the heart of the home, and so many things about the rest of your life are influenced by your kitchen." (05:00)

2. Four Small Kitchen Improvements for Instant Impact (06:00 – 07:00)

Rachel frames the episode as a tactical “list” episode—four small upgrades or systems to make your kitchen work for your real life (not an aspirational Pinterest board).

Tip 1: Get Organized (07:05 – 15:55)

Overcoming Overwhelm

Rachel empathizes with those who find organizing overwhelming, recommending starting with a single drawer or area.
She references a social media creator who helps people tackle long-avoided projects, showing it usually takes far less time than expected.
Quote:

"The monster under the bed... it's not actually that big a deal." (07:55)

Practical Organization Tips

"The kitchen should be organized by the person who uses it most." (09:40)
For Rachel, that’s her husband Kez, so his system takes precedence—even if it’s not her preference.
Use whatever you have for dividers (repurposed check boxes, small Tupperware), emphasizing functionality over aesthetics at first.
- Quote:
  
  "Make it pretty on the inside before you focus on pretty on the outside. Kind of the same for us as humans." (12:50)
Display staples (rice, nuts, pasta) in clear jars or containers on the counter for both functionality and beauty—collect them slowly from thrift or discount stores if needed.
Emphasizes starting small:
- Quote:
  
  "Organize one single part. Maybe it's one drawer, maybe it's the refrigerator." (15:20)

Tip 2: Create Systems That Save Time (16:37 – 22:50)

Kitchen as Functional Zones

Organize not by strict categories (all spices together, all baking) but by use-case or “zones.”
Example: All coffee-related items (machine, beans, mugs, filters) are clustered together for an efficient morning routine.
- Quote:
  
  "We don't cook by category. We cook by task." (17:16)

Nightly Reset Habit

Never leave dishes in the sink overnight; prioritize waking up to a clean kitchen as a self-care move.
Quote:

"All you're doing is sacrificing tomorrow's peace for today's comfort." (19:05)
Normalize cleaning up—Rachel shares how her family uses a chore chart; children alternate these tasks and don’t complain because it’s routine.
- Quote:
  
  "If you establish these routines, even if you don't have kids, if you establish this for yourself it's going to feel normal. ... Cleaning up should be a normal thing." (20:55)

Tip 3: Let Your Kitchen Support Your Nutrition (22:51 – 32:45)

Self-Sabotage and Temptation

Be realistic about willpower. Don’t buy foods you don’t want to eat—in Rachel’s case, she never keeps chips or treats that trigger her.
- Quote:
  
  "Do not think that you are just magically going to have the willpower to not eat the entire box of Chips Ahoy Chewy." (23:45)
Make indulgent foods special, rare, and get rid of leftovers.

Make Healthy Choices Easy

Store nutritious options in the open—washed, cut veggies at the front of the fridge; healthy staples (like beans, oats, nuts) in view on countertops.
Prepare snacks as soon as you return from the store for grab-and-go ease.
- Quote:
  
  "Set your kitchen up to support what you’re trying to do nutritionally, whether it's prepping those snacks or even prepping things to make it easier to cook healthy dinners throughout the week." (29:30)
Always have a go-to healthy meal with ingredients on hand (Rachel’s is canned beans, chilies, eggs, and frozen spinach).
- Quote:
  
  "Pick one healthy meal that takes you almost no time... and tastes good enough that you will actually reach for it." (31:10)

Tip 4: Design for Real Life, Not for Fantasy (32:46 – 38:00)

Your kitchen should serve your current reality, not your Pinterest board or an aspirational self.
- Quote:
  
  "Design the kitchen for the real you, not the aspirational you." (33:25)
Don’t burden yourself with equipment or spaces for habits you wish you had (e.g., juicers or meal prep bins you never use). Let go of things that make you feel like a failure; keep the kitchen supportive, not shaming.
Example: Rachel’s kitchen is set up for frequent bean and pistachio milk use—reflecting real habits, not a fantasy.
- Quote:
  
  "A kitchen that serves your actual life and is built for the person who’s going to walk into it every morning. That is important. The vision board can wait." (36:55)

Episode Recap & Encouragement (38:01 – 40:15)

Rachel recaps the four areas for improving your kitchen this week:

Organize for how you actually use the space.
Create functional zones and commit to a nightly reset.
Keep healthy foods visible and easy to grab, while keeping out temptations.
Design the kitchen for your real, current self—not for a social media ideal.

She closes with loving encouragement:

"Let’s let the kitchen be a little bit easier, a little bit more ours, and let’s do it in one small fix at a time so that it doesn’t overwhelm us, but actually makes our life feel better." (39:20)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

"Your kitchen is the room that you interact with more than any other room in your house, full stop." (05:40)
"The kitchen should be organized by the person who uses it the most." (09:40)
"Do not leave dishes in the sink overnight. ... You are sabotaging you tomorrow morning when you wake up." (19:05)
"If it is in my house, I am going to eat it." (24:10)
"Design the kitchen for the real you, not the aspirational you." (33:25)
"A kitchen that serves your actual life... That is important. The vision board can wait." (36:55)
"Let’s just be ourselves and create a home that supports it." (39:35)

Timestamps for Key Segments

[03:40] – The hardships of living without a kitchen: why the kitchen matters
[07:05] – Tip #1: Getting organized (starting small)
[09:40] – Who should organize the kitchen?
[13:55] – Pretty on the inside before pretty on the outside
[16:37] – Tip #2: Creating systems/zones and nightly cleaning habit
[19:05] – The no-sink-full-of-dishes rule
[22:51] – Tip #3: Nutrition, sabotaging yourself, and prepping for success
[29:30] – Prep snacks right away, always have a go-to meal
[32:46] – Tip #4: Build your kitchen for the life you actually have
[36:55] – Real-life pantry systems and the vision board quote
[38:01] – Recap of all four tips, closing encouragement

Summary

This episode delivers a blend of relatable storytelling, honest humor, and practical advice, empowering listeners to pick one small change to transform the kitchen—and by extension, their day-to-day wellbeing. Rachel’s no-nonsense, compassionate tone makes it clear: you don’t need perfection, you just need a kitchen that’s yours. And making one small change this week is a great place to start.

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Transcript26 lines

[00:00]
Rachel Hollis
The teacher's pet that will forever live inside my heart. Always loves Back to School. And while my own children might not feel the same way about it that I do, I love this time of year. I love getting new school supplies. What backpacks are we going to take? And getting your back to school shoes. When I was a kid, you got one pair of shoes a year. So the Back to school shoes, huge deal. And if you are in the market for your own pair of back to school shoes, Famous Footwear makes it easy to get ready for the school year with great shoes at great prices. You can find brands like Jordan, Nike, Adidas, Birkenstocks for the hippies like me, New Balance, Skechers, I mean, you name it, Famous Footwear has got it right now it's bogo. Buy one pair, get one half off at Famous Footwear. Shop in store to get $10 to spend this fall. Some exclusions apply. Plus join famous rewards to get Famous Footwear's best benefits, including free shipping. I love my phone but not my carrier.
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Rachel Hollis
So I wouldn't have to buy a new phone?
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[01:40]
Rachel Hollis
Last year we remodeled our house. We had bought like a hundred year old Spanish style house in Los Angeles and we had the brilliant idea that we would remodel this house while we lived in it. It wasn't just a brilliant idea, it was actually just required. Like we couldn't afford two mortgages at once. So we bought this house, we lived in it, we went completely down to the studs. And some of you were there for the saga that happened in the aftermath. If you've ever remodeled something, you know how hard it is to live inside of. There's dust, there's rat poop everywhere. It's so awful. But without a doubt, without a doubt, the worst part of that experience was not having a kitchen. Like we had a plastic sink, like a utility sink that we found at Home Depot and we set it up in the backyard with a garden hose and that was our kitchen sink. We used our grill. We had a refrigerator in the backyard. We could do this because it was la and it never rains there, so we had a fridge in the backyard. It was so, so awful. And it lasted for months and months and months. And I don't even like to remember that time period because it was so hard for our family. But I think it is a really good foundation for today's conversation about the importance of the kitchen. Whether you love to cook as much as we do, or maybe you barely cook at all. I have never been inside of a house where the kitchen wasn't the center of everything. The kitchen is the heart of the home, and so many things about the rest of your life are influenced by your kitchen. So when you put more time and intention into the setup of your kitchen, I think that that time really pays off. I think it spills over into other areas of your life. And I think we should talk about how to make your kitchen better this week. Every single Wednesday, I bring you an episode based around the idea that you can pick one area of your life and do a few things that will actually improve the quality before this time next week, and I think we tackle the kitchen. Your kitchen is the room that you interact with more than any other room in your house, Full stop. I am convinced you're in there more than you're in your closet. You're in there more than you're in your bathroom. You are in there when you're fully awake, when you're half asleep. You are in there when you're exhausted, when you're feeling your best. Like, your kitchen shows up in your life so often. And if the kitchen is a mess, if the kitchen is chaos, if the kitchen is organized or completely disorganized, all of those things really do affect every other area of your day. I really think the kitchen is the room in your house that you could invest a little time in. This week. You could fix one or two things about your kitchen and really feel a significant difference. So today isn't a philosophical kind of episode. Today is a list. Today are four areas. Small, tiny little upgrades or systems that are going to save you some time, that are going to make eating healthy actually easy, instead of a whole dramatic production and I think will help you build a kitchen that serves your real life. Not the Pinterest thing that you have pinned, but the real life you are currently living. Let's create a kitchen that really helps you to thrive. Let's start with getting organized now, before you freak out, before you're like, I don't have time. I'm exhausted. The idea of organizing my kitchen makes me want to die. Fine. I'm going to give you four ideas. Just pick one. But there might not be a better idea on this list than organizing the kitchen if it isn't currently in an organized state. I am talking to you. If you currently have eight of the same spatula, but you never use more than one, I'm talking to you. If your junk drawer is like all the drawers, I'm talking to you. If all your silverware is just thrown into one drawer. No. No lines in between. No organization whatsoever. If you can't find things in your kitchen, if there's no rhyme or reason to where anything is now I will. I know some people have brains that work a little bit differently than everybody else's. Shout out to my ADHD friends. And if it's your kitchen and it makes sense to your brain and you know exactly where the Tupperware is, even though it's weirdly stored inside of the freezer, if that works for you, keep on trucking. But for everybody else who knows that the kitchen is a mess knows that when you open those cabinet doors or when you go into the pantry, it's crazy town. But the idea of organizing things has so overwhelmed you that it's like the monster under the bed and it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and so you just don't touch it because it feels like too much. It's time that we look under the bed and see that the monster isn't actually that big a deal. Have you seen that gal on social media who does the videos called? It's something like how long does it actually take? It's a really smart idea. She goes to her friends houses who have been putting something off for weeks or months or sometimes years, and she helps them do the thing that they've been avoiding, like organize their closet or get rid of junk or finish their dissertation. And the beautiful thing about that video series is that it is never as long as the people think it will take. It ends up being hours. And some people have been putting things off for years. So I wonder if this is particularly aimed at those of you who need to be reminded that it's not going to take you until Christmas. It's probably going to take you one solid weekend day to get your kitchen in order, and it is going to make you feel like a million bucks. A couple ideas for those of you who are willing to to embrace the organization you know you need to do. Number one. I believe that the kitchen should be organized by the person who uses it the most. In my case, in my home, that is actually my husband. My husband Kez cooks six out of seven dinners. Truly, he loves to cook. My joke is that that he really enjoys it. And at this point in my parenting career, not my favorite thing to do. I'm like, well, you came into our lives when I was 13 years into cooking dinner every night, and you can take it from here, man. Like, you go ahead.
[09:11]
T-Mobile Representative
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[09:11]
Rachel Hollis
You cook all the meals. So because he is the one who is cooking more than I am, there are choices about where pans are or pots are or different things are located. That would not be my choice, y'. All. It would not be my choice. And the control freak in me wants to say, no, the knife drawer shouldn't be here. The knife drawer should be there. But he uses it more than I do, and therefore he gets a choice about where things are located. That being said, I have very strong opinions on how things are organized within the spot that they are located. So I love a drawer organizer. I love, you know, a cubby. I like things that divide spaces. So everything has a spot and there's a spot for everything. And I would like to say that I have enjoyed this type of organization since I was in my very first apartment, since I was living on my own in a one bedroom in Burbank, down the street from the Poquito Moss. If you know, you know. But even back then, when I couldn't afford drawer organizers, I would use small boxes. I would use, like, remember checkbooks? Remember checks, guys? I would use the box that my checks came in, and I would use that to organize the drawers. Like, I would find little boxes or little Tupperware, little things, and I would put them inside of the drawers just to help things stay in their own spot. Rule number one for me, whoever uses the kitchen most, if they have a strong opinion about where things go, I think don't fight them, just go with it. And number two, within the space that each of those things belong, have some organization inside of them. Not the same topic, but one of my favorite things in the whole wide world are those drawer dividers that are sort of like spring loaded. They're for your closet, but if you can find ones that are small enough to go inside your kitchen drawers, I say you go for it. Because the problem is that all of our drawers are different sizes, and the drawer organizers that you can buy don't always fit. So just do what you can. But I love having organization inside of each spot. And if you've got a little budget, if you got a little money to throw this way, don't go for the full renovation. Don't go for the, you know, I'm going to redo the backsplash. I love that idea for you. But if your kitchen isn't full functional, making it prettier is not going to help anything. In fact, it's actually just going to add chaos in the short term. Much better to get it functional, to get it to a place that you can really utilize it well and then make it pretty. Basically, I want you to make it pretty on the inside before you focus on pretty on the outside. Kind of the same for us as humans. So we're going to get organized. We're going to look for ways to. To make the kitchen as functional as possible for us. My last thing that I will add to this mix that I really do swear by, because I think it makes a difference, is beautiful containers so that you see the things that you need to be using. If you've ever seen one of my older YouTube videos where I talk about how I organize the kitchen, I will show you different glass canisters. I will show you mason jars. I will show you all sorts of things that I have where I take the rice, the oatmeal, the nuts, the pasta. Like all the things that people typically keep in their pantry, I put in pretty jars, and I put them on the countertop, and these are things I've collected over time. If you've got the budget for it, you can go to Target, Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Container Store. If you don't have the budget, keep your eye out at yard sales. Keep your eye out at the Goodwill or flea markets. You can find so much great stuff in the brick brac section at goodwill that costs $1.99. You can collect it over time. And it really does help to display the food that you need to use up. If you have a bad habit of grocery shopping for things and then them going bad before you can use them, Any of those goods that you can actually store on the counter so that you don't forget they're there. If you is such a move, I really love it. I think it makes the kitchen prettier, but I also think it makes it very functional. So number one thing that will improve your kitchen this week is to get it organized. If you feel overwhelmed with the idea of organizing the whole thing, you know what I'm going to say? Organize one single part. Maybe it's one drawer, maybe it's the refrigerator, maybe it's the pantry. Maybe it's one cabinet, but start with one area. I tend to think that when you have success in one area makes you feel good and it motivates you to do more. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp has been an ad partner of mine since the beginning of my podcast that's going all the way back to 2017. And there's a reason why I believe in this brand so much, because I know the power of therapy. And the easier we make it for people to access a therapist, the easier we make it for people to get help that changes their life. So if you've heard about therapy with BetterHelp, let's take it a step further and let's look to see how much people love it when they use it. You can see for yourself by checking out the amazing customer reviews that are updated every single day@betterhelp.com reviews. If you check those out, you're going to find hundreds of people who are sharing how the experience of therapy with better help has helped them. If you haven't tried it yet, better help makes it so easy to find a therapist and get started. You answer a few questions and you'll get matched with someone right away. And just like when you're dating, if for some reason you don't like your therapist, you can change really easily. You're in good hands. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if Better Help is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com Rach that's betterhelp H-E-L-P.com Rach I love my phone but not my carrier.
[16:08]
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[16:09]
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[16:17]
Rachel Hollis
So I wouldn't have to buy a new phone?
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[16:38]
Rachel Hollis
Second thing I'm going to recommend that you do to improve your kitchen this week is create some systems that will save you time. There's no money that you need to spend for this one, it's just you spending some time to put thought into how your kitchen actually operates. So the first suggestion I'm going to make here is that you create zones in your kitchen, not just organizing for organizing sake. So what I mean is that most of us tend to organize our kitchen by category rather than how we actually use those items. So we put all the spices in one spot and all the mugs in another spot, and maybe all the baking stuff goes over here. And it sounds super logical, but it's not actually how you use the room. We don't cook by category. We cook by task. So, for instance, in my kitchen, all of my coffee stuff is in one corner of the kitchen. My espresso machine is there, my coffee pot is there, My whole beans are there, my grinder's there, my ground coffee is there, my filters are there, my mugs are there. You get the concept. It's all in one place because I'm going to make coffee all in that one area, and I don't want to be walking around my kitchen at 5am grabbing filters from one spot, mugs from another, and coffee grounds from somewhere else. So it all goes in one single spot. All of my smoothie materials, meaning the shaker bottles, the supplements, the protein powder, the creatine, the collagen, all of that stuff is in the same place. Even though bottles wouldn't necessarily make sense with supplements, because I use all of that stuff at the same time. They're all in the same cabinets. You don't have to redo the organization of your whole kitchen. If you think in terms of, like, the biggest moments that you use your kitchen for during the day and then organize cabinets around those moments, it really does improve the functionality of everything else. Okay, so that's number one, organizing by zone. Number two in the systems front is a nightly reset. I've talked to y' all about this before, and I stand by this idea. We do not go to bed with dishes in the sink. Ever, ever, ever. We do not go to bed with dishes in the sink. The easiest way to do this is just once you have dinner, you do the dishes immediately. I know that's not always easy. I know that you're tired. If there's a better way for you to lay out your evening routine, great. But do not leave dishes in your sink to come back to the next morning. All you're doing is sacrificing tomorrow's peace for today's comfort, like you are sabotaging you tomorrow morning when you wake up. You want to start the day strong. You want to start the day fresh. You want to feel really good about what's happening today. And you go in your kitchen and it's a disaster, and it's smells funky, and there's ants crawling on the dishes from last night. Do not put yourself in that situation set yourself up for success. This is one of those tasks that does not take as long as you think it does. Do not leave dishes in the sink overnight. And I'm going to even add one more element to this that might throw some of you off. I try my absolute hardest in life not to use things that are disposable. My napkins, my dishcloths, my plates, silverware, all of it. I wash it, I put it away. But I also understand that there are times in life where, for whatever reason, you don't have the capacity for dishes. Maybe you're a new parent. Maybe you're dealing with depression, Maybe you're exhausted. I honestly don't care what the reason is. Maybe this is a season where you need some paper plates. If you are in a season right now where you are feeling super overwhelmed by doing dishes, find a way to not do them. Like, just make it easier on yourself so that you are not setting yourself up for unnecessary stress. But every single night, we want to make sure the dishes are done, whether they're in the dishwasher, whether you've washed them by hand, whatever. Wipe down the counter, take out the trash if you can. Like, just do a nightly reset so you come into a clean kitchen in the morning. I also think this is a really important habit to teach your kids. We have a chore chart on the fridge, and a different kid is responsible for the dishes and or the trash every single night of the week, during the day, all day long, especially here in the summer, I'm doing the dishes or my husband's doing the dishes. We're constantly keeping the kitchen clean. But after dinner, the dinner dishes, except for a couple nights a week where we slot in, one of the kids is responsible for those dishes, or one of those kids is responsible for taking out the trash. Noah, still, she's nine, so she's super helpful. She can't do it entirely on her own. So on the night that it's Noah's dishes, she's paired with one of her brothers so that they can help her do the task. We actually just had some friends over for dinner this weekend, and they saw the chore chart. It happened to be Saturday, which is the day of the week where we cook the biggest dinner. And on Saturday, all the kids work together on the dishes, because there tend to be a lot more dishes than normal on a Saturday. And after dinner was done, I was like, all right, guys, clear the table, and then we're gonna have dessert. And all the kids stood up, and they started clearing the table and the people that we had over for dinner. The adults were like, what is happening? I'm like, oh, oh, it's their night for dishes. And she's like, no, I, I, I've just never seen kids who didn't. They didn't complain at all. They didn't say anything. They just did it. I'm like, well, yeah, because they know. Because it's just a habit. In our family, if you establish these routines, even if you don't have kids, you don't have family, you live by yourself. If you establish the routine for yourself, it's going to feel normal. And if you establish this routine when your kids are young, it will feel normal to them. Someone asked me on an Ask Rach several months ago, like, how they could get the kids involved and how they could get their kids to help with chores without complaining. And I think the biggest piece of advice I have is normalize it. Don't make it some big, dramatic thing. We do chores as a family, all of us do. And my kids see me and my husband, we do way more than they will ever even think about doing. So it's just a normal thing. In our house, whether you have kids or not, cleaning up should be a normal thing. Third piece of advice for how you can get your kitchen under control and in line this week. This one's me. Not everyone's going to give you this advice, but I think if we're setting up our kitchen, we should set up our kitchen to make it easier for us to stay on our nutritional plan. Whatever your goals are for your nutrition, your kitchen can assist you or your kitchen can sabotage you. I think this is the section that matters most to me because there is so much advice out there when it comes to health that assumes that we have way more discipline and more willpower and more information than we actually do. Like, I really think when it comes to the kitchen, you have to set yourself up for success, and that means that you don't sabotage yourself. One of the most basic rules I have for the kitchen, it really works, is do not bring things into your kitchen that you don't want to be eating, period. Do not think that you are just magically going to have the willpower to not eat the entire box of Chips Ahoy Chewy. Like, don't do that to yourself. I have never had that kind of willpower. If it is in my house, I am going to eat it. The exception to that rule is if there's certain kinds of junk food that the kids really love. And it's like this treat that they get to have, but I don't care about it at all. Like, I'm not a. I'm not a candy kind of person. I don't really care about candy. If you have candy in front of me, like it literally not tempted at all, don't care. I will not find myself in the kitchen at 11 o' clock at night eating your gummy worms. But if you bring chips into my house, if we have some tortilla chips and some guac, if we've got potato chips, like anything like that, I am going to accidentally sabotage myself. I have no control. Like, especially if I'm hormonal, get outta my way. I'm eating the chips. So just as a rule, I don't bring them into the house. Or for instance, it was feast day on Saturday. We cooked all of these elaborate things. We brought stuff into the house we wouldn't normally eat. And then I'm only buying enough for that dinner. I'm not buying extra. And if there's extra left over, like, we did a big grill, we did a big cookout this weekend, and we had salt and vinegar chips, which I absolutely love. And there was like one third of a bag left and I threw them away. And maybe other people, maybe you think that's wasteful or you think that's ridiculous, but, like, my kids don't need that either. It's a treat. Those kinds of things are not everyday food. It's full of sodium, it's fried. Like it's all the things. That's something that we have sparingly. We don't have access to it every day of our lives. So as a rule of thumb, do not bring it into your house if you don't want to be tempted by it. If you are bringing it to your house, buy it in small quantities for special occasions and get rid of it once you're done. And I will add something crazy. I have been known for myself to sabotage food. So I will not dig it out of the trash. Now, that's not something I've done in a very long time. But when I was younger, I would throw like half a box of donuts away and then an hour later I'd be like, well, they're in the box. I know they're in the trash, but they're in the box. So I have. I will pour like liquid soap. When I was younger, I would pour like liquid soap on stuff so that I wouldn't dig it out of the trash. And if you think I'm A mole person and a weirdo. I mean, you can think that because I am. I really like junk food and I have to really fight myself to not go after it. Those precious, magical moments you'll always cherish at Disney Cruise Line, we cherish them too. Make the memories that never leave you. Disney Cruise Line where magic meets the
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Rachel Hollis
So that's what we're going to do to keep junk food out of our house. The other thing that we can do to set ourselves up for more nutritional success is, is keep the foods that you want to eat front and center. This is going along with what I said about putting your healthy staples inside of canisters on the countertop. But I would also say that you can set up your fridge with the same idea. So we want to make it as easy as possible to stay on our nutritional plans. And one of the ways that you can do that is to prep your snacks. So if you go to the store and let's say you get veggies and you get fruit and different things, as soon as you come home from the store, prep those vet like let's say you got a bunch of cucumber and some bell pepper because you love to eat those raw, wash those immediately, chop them up, put them in a container, put them front and center in your refrigerator. So every single time you open the fridge, that's the first thing that you see. Kind of goes along with the same idea of not for the kitchen, but for life. Always having healthy snacks in your bag. I'm a big believer in always being prepared to be hungry. I would love it if I always had exactly the right amount of food and I never got hungry between meals. But that is not reality. Reality is sometimes I get hungry and then I get hangry. And if I don't have a great snack in my bag, I'm either going to make a terrible choice while I'm out in the world or I'm going to get home and be famished and then eat everything in sight. So set your kitchen up to support what you're trying to do nutritionally, whether it's prepping those snacks or even prepping things to make it easier to cook healthy dinners throughout the week. All right. Third piece of advice for nutritional organization of your kitchen is always having things stocked in your kitchen that will allow you to stay on plan. So pick one healthy meal that takes you almost no time and requires no decision making and tastes good enough that you will actually reach for it. So for me, this is things like eggs. I always have canned beans in the pantry. I cannot tell you how often I eat canned beans with some diced chilies and some cholula and two fried eggs. I probably eat that four days a week for at least one meal. I've got good fiber, I've got slow burning carbs, I've got protein, I've got some spice from the cholula. All of those things can stay in my fridge or my pantry and they last a really long time and they're very quick for me to make. I also keep frozen spinach in the freezer, so I'll grab a couple handfuls of that and toss it into the beans while they cook. And now I've got even more greens and goodness going on in this bowl, but I have it all the time. It's my go to meal. What is yours if it's like a frozen dinner or like a pre packaged like, I don't care what it is, I just care that you have something. So you're saving yourself the guesswork and you know that it's going to allow you to stay on plan and it's going to keep you full and it's not going to have you driving to Taco Bell at 10 o' clock at night. Fourth thing that you can do this week to get that kitchen in line is to remember that the kitchen is there to serve you. This is your kitchen. And the more you can set this kitchen up to support the life you actually have and the life you actually want to live, the better off you'll be. For instance, I know all about those pretty kitchens on Pinterest. I know all about them. And I know that there are things that I did earlier in my journey to health that were not pretty but really helped me. Things like keeping my blender on the counter, along with all of the supplements that would go into my green smoothie, because if I saw it every day, I would actually have it instead of ignoring the fact that all of those ingredients were in a pantry somewhere. So there were choices that I made that supported the life I wanted to have, not just the pretty kitchen I wanted to have. The closer you can get that kitchen to serving your purposes the better off you're gonna be. Design the kitchen for the real you, not the aspirational you. And. And I will go both ways with this, too. A lot of us are setting up our kitchen for the person we wish we were. So maybe for you, you're the opposite of me. Maybe you've got the juicer on the counter because you really want to be the person who juices. Or maybe you have way too much stuff for meal prepping. You want to be the mom that meal preps on Sunday. Or maybe you're wasting three cabinets on baking supplies because you want to be the person who makes bread from scratch, but you're never going to be those things. Whatever the kitchen is, let it be your kitchen. Because I think we believe it will be motivational for us to see the juicer on the counter in the same way that we think it will be motivational if we keep the jeans that are three sizes too small. It's not. It just makes you feel worse about yourself. So let the kitchen either be something that reminds you, like, is the habit stacking that you need, like me with my green smoothie equipment, or let it be clear of things that are making you feel bad about yourself. You don't need to be a juicer. You don't need to make your bread from scratch. You can buy both those things at the grocery store. You can get the results that you're looking for without beating yourself up for how you get there. It does not help you to feel like a failure every single time you open a cabinet. Like, the kitchen doesn't need to be reminding you of someone that you are not. So look at how you actually cook right now. Look at how you actually use that room right now. Not how you did it five years ago and not how you hope to do it 10 years from now. Set up the kitchen around the truth. If you eat the same six meals on rotation, build a kitchen around those six meals. I have a pantry section that has approximately 30 cans of beans in it. And right next to Those beans are 30 cans of diced green chilies. Like, I have a section of my pantry that has 25 containers of pistachio milk. Now, that one was an accident. I thought I was supposed to order the pistachio milk, and Kez thought he was supposed to order the pistachio milk, and we both ordered a massive supply of pistachio milk because that's what we like in our coffee. And we don't live near a cute little coffee house anymore, so we have to make our own. But my point is, the kitchen is set up for the stuff that we use over and over and over. And if you open our pantry right now, you wouldn't see see massive diversity. You'd be like, whoa, these people really like beans and pistachio milk. A kitchen that serves your actual life and is built for the person who's going to walk into it every morning. That is important. The vision board can wait. The vision board can follow you just figuring out how to live your days in a more successful way. And look, this is going to look different for every single person who's listening to this. Like, if you're super into cooking like Kez is, you're going to have a completely different kitchen than someone who likes to cook one meal and then eat leftovers all week long. If you barely cook at all and you love to order some takeout, your kitchen's going to look really different than mine. But be honest about the things that can live inside of that space that will make you feel supported, that will allow you to practice self care, that will allow you to slow down, that will allow you to show up for yourself. Give yourself permission to actually admit who you are and allow the kitchen to be reflective of that. Okay, quick recap. Pick one thing that you can do this week to improve the state of your kitchen. We're going to look for ways that we can get organized in a way that feels accurate to who we are and how we actually use the space. We're going to zone our kitchen instead of just organizing it. So we're going to organize by how we use things, not just what we use. We're going to commit to a nightly reset. We do not leave dishes in the sink. We do not leave dirty countertops. We do not leave trash that's smelling up the place. We want the kitchen we walk into tomorrow to set us up for success. So that means we need to do some extra work tonight to set us up for success in the morning. Next. We want that kitchen to support our healthy habits. Keep it front and center. If it's healthy, leave it out of the house if it's not, always have at least one thing that you can make easily that will allow you to stay on plan, and that will last for a while. So it's always there, no matter what. Last piece of advice. We want the kitchen to be designed for who we are and the life that we have and the direction we want to head to. Not for some fantasy mythical version of the perfect mom or the perfect dad or the perfect person or the perfect college student or whatever other crazy title you think you're supposed to be. Let's just be ourselves and create a home that supports it. Let's let the kitchen be a little bit easier, a little bit more hours, and let's do it in one small fix at a time so that it doesn't overwhelm us, but actually makes our life feel better. I hope that this episode of Better this Week gave you some ideas about what you can do to improve the heart of every home. I will be back soon with more conversations just like this one. Until then, as always, I love you and I'm rooting for you. The rachel hollis podcast is produced by me, rachel hollis. It's edited by andrew weller and jack noble.
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