How to Keep Your Kitchen Counters Clutter-Free

We love a tidy kitchen, right?

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Small appliances stored away.

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Counters wiped down.

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Every crumb, every ring from a coffee mug, gone.

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For about an hour the counter gleams, looking like a magazine spread.

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And the materials don't really matter when it's looking good.

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Stone, Corian, Formica … they all look just as crisp.

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Then someone drops the mail down and keeps walking.

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Or plugs in a phone charger, grabs the phone and leaves the charger dangling from the outlet.

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Then a few dirty dishes, maybe some random receipts, a set of keys buried under more mail or even a newspaper …

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A refillable water bottle that should probably see the inside of the dishwasher, a few other projects you're "going to deal with later" that just got set down on your way to somewhere else.

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Does this sound familiar?

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Kitchen counters aren't messy because of their contents.

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It's not a kitchen problem, exactly.

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Clutter accumulates here because this room contains some of the biggest, flattest, most convenient surfaces in your entire home, and they are at the crossroads of everyone who walks through the door.

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We all need to eat.

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And get things to drink.

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And prepare food to eat.

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So, other than the bathroom, this room sees the most traffic throughout the day.

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And that means that when someone walks in with the mail in their hand, or their keys, or a school permission slip, or a flyer for a new restaurant, or or or … chances are they're going to land on a counter and stay there.

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Because the only decision that was made was, "I need to set this down for a minute," not "Where is the home for this thing in my hand?"

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That's the whole problem and solution in a nutshell.

MYTH ONE: YOU JUST NEED FEWER APPLIANCES OUT

Sure, that helps a little.

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And the standard rule or best practice of just keeping appliances out that you use every day still holds.

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I have a toaster oven, Nespresso Pixie coffee maker and milk frother, and a Vitamix blender on my counters.

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A turntable (lazy Susan) that holds oils, vinegars, salt and pepper.

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A spoon rest that was my dad's—chile peppers from Santa Fe.

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A bowl of produce ranging from sweet potatoes, onions, and garlic to tomatoes, avocados and bananas.

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Hand soap and dish soap bottles.

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That's it.

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But I've organized kitchens with nothing but a coffee maker or an electric kettle on the counter and they still look like a junk drawer within a week, because it's not really about the appliances.

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It's back to the mail.

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The keys.

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The homework.

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The button that needs to be sewed on you don't want to lose.

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The online purchases … and their inevitable returns.

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The stuff with no home anywhere else in the house that can't claim the kitchen as its home but it's better than nothing, right?

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Wrong.

MYTH TWO: Y'ALL NEED TO STOP DUMPING STUFF HERE

Whether you live alone or with a small battalion of humans and animals, no one is deliberately trying to defy you or upset you.

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They're doing exactly what anyone would do with a thing that has nowhere else to go.

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They, and possibly you, are putting it down on the nearest flat surface.

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The counter isn't winning the "I'll just set it down for a minute" contest because people are careless, or thoughtless or mean.

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It's winning because it's undefeated.

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Nowhere else in the house is a "better" place to put this stuff if you haven't assigned each kind of thing a home beforehand.

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It's kind of like water seeking its own level only in this case it's stuff seeks the closest, easiest, largest surface fastest.

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Bingo—that's the kitchen counter.

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Although back to the bathroom for a minute.

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It often runs a close second for random items when you race in there to do your business with something in your hand.

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Suddenly, that's the last surface you saw so it's where your keys or your phone ends up.

MYTH THREE: A CUTE TRAY OR BASKET WILL FIX IT

I'm all for a decorative basket.

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But a basket doesn't solve the problem, it just makes the temporary home for something prettier.

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Because now you have a beautifully stack of mail, keys, receipts, pens and batteries sitting on your counter instead of a messy one.

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Still on the counter.

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Still not sorted, decided about, or given a real home somewhere else.

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Here's where to actually start—not with a new appliance lineup, and not with a basket.

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Start with sorting like with like, right there on the counter, so you can actually see what's landing there and how often.

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Mail in one pile.

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Keys in another.

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Paper money, gift cards and loose change in another.

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Anything mid-project—the thing you're "going to deal with"—in its own pile.

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Once you can see it, you decide now, where do these things want to live.

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You don't need to keep deciding every time you walk in the kitchen where something lives.

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And here's another not-so-secret fact: it takes the same amount of time to put it away in the moment as it does it put it away later.

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Only difference is the emotional cost now versus later.

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In the moment schlepping the mail all the way down the hallway or up the stairs to the home office feels like a pain in the butt.

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But walking past the mail on the kitchen counter 12 times a day eats away at you in little bites all day long.

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And you still haven't put the mail in its home.

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So which math is less expensive?

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One trip to the office or a dozen swipes at your self esteem and then a walk to the office?

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If you want to open and sort the mail in the kitchen before you head to the office, great.

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I do that because the recycling is under the kitchen sink.

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But then once that's done, the mail gets taken to my office and put in its basket there.

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My keys, as I mentioned in a previous article, get dropped in the hall bench along with my wallet, any money and chapstick.

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Any packages get finalized in the kitchen—that's where the packing tape lives— and then stacked by the front door so they leave with me on my next trip to the car.

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I'd rather they ride around in the backseat for a few days than sit by the door.

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That way, if I happen to pass a drop off store, it's that much easier to dispatch it in the moment.

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Any other "deal with later" stuff gets an actual deadline, not an indefinite one.

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With all that in mind, then—and only then—a basket or a tray could make sense.

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Because now that container is the home for something specific you've already decided belongs there, not the abyss that swallows all random items hanging out in the kitchen.

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This isn't the article to discuss where all the things that might be passing through your kitchen live besides your kitchen––you'll find those details in other articles.

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But in closing, I'll leave you with this.

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Your counters aren't cluttered because you're a lousy cook, or a mediocre cleaner or a bad parent—not that you're any of those things either.

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Your counters are cluttered because they've become the path of least resistance for everything in your house small enough to fit on a counter that doesn't have a real home yet.

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The good news?

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Once you make those decisions, it's a snap to keep the kitchen counters clear, clean and looking great.

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So—are you the kind of person who just needs some clarity on the problem and solution and is ready to take the info and run with it?

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Or are you someone who wants some hand-holding, coaching and support to make sure it actually gets done and doesn't become one more thing nagging at you in the middle of the night?

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If you're the first kind of person, my book Unstuff Your Life! walks you through exactly how to sort, decide, and assign real homes—there's an entire chapter on the kitchen included.

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Get Unstuff Your Life! here → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQ2P1YS9?linkCode=ssc&tag=andrewmelleni-20&creativeASIN=B0DQ2P1YS9&asc_item-id=amzn1.ideas.3NPT054JW2UKT&ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ons_mixed_d_asin

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If you're the second kind of person, the De-Stress Your Mess Challenge™ gets your kitchen sorted with me, live.

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Join the next DYM Challenge here → https://go.andrewmellen.com/dym

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Either way, start by setting a timer—15 minutes. That's all you need to get started.