How To Use The Two Foot Rule For A More Organized Kitchen

Kitchens are one of the busiest spaces in the home. Whether you're making an elaborate dinner, doing dishes, or enjoying a meal in your breakfast nook, all that traffic inevitably leads to messes and clutter that can be overwhelming to tackle all at once. Piled up plates, small appliances, spices, dishrags, pantry items, mail, utensils — you name it — all tend to end up on the counter or stuffed into cabinets, resulting in a room that is both visually overstimulating and difficult to use. Thankfully, there's a method that will keep your kitchen counters clutter-free that doesn't require you to spend hours organizing every nook and cranny.

The "2-foot rule" is a simple concept. Rather than setting out to clean an entire room — a task that's easy to put off, thanks to the sheer amount of time and effort it might require — only take care of the 2-foot area that gets the most use. In the kitchen, this often means the area around the sink or the stove, the two main spaces for cooking and cleaning activity. Because it's such a small space, it's a task that you should be able to complete in a few minutes, ideally each day. By regularly putting away and cleaning up items in your most-used area, you're effectively resetting your kitchen so you won't have to do any additional tasks the next time you're ready to use it. At the very least, it will streamline your cooking routine, but if you're someone who is often overwhelmed by large-scale cleaning tasks, it might also result in a cleaner home overall.

The "2-foot rule" has specific parameters, but it's not an unheard-of concept. After a long day running through their routine, many people experience decision fatigue — exhaustion around making choices. As simple as it sounds, constantly having to decide what to wear, what to eat, and which tasks to take care of can take a major mental toll, and by the time you're winding down for the day, deciding where to start cleaning up can feel like a choice that's impossible to make. Many organizational strategies eliminate this hangup by deciding for you; Bobby Berk's suggestion to start organizing the junk drawer is another example. The "2-foot rule" is no exception.

Combatting decision fatigue isn't the only benefit of this strategy. By focusing on your most-used area, you're able to make an immediate, functional difference in the appearance and flow of your kitchen. You're welcome to stop here, especially if you don't have much time to clean or you're especially tapped out that day, and you'll still get the benefits of a refreshed space. In many cases, however, this small cleanup will give you the momentum to keep going. Once you've done all the dishes or cleared the counter in your most-used area, it's much easier to look around and move to the next task — organizing a messy spice rack, for example, or finally putting that blender you use once a month back into the cabinet. Continue with this flow, and you'll be left with a completely organized kitchen in no time, even if the task seemed impossible or too overwhelming initially.