“From the moment you start tidying, you will be compelled to reset your life. As a result, your life will start to change […] Tidying is just a tool, not the final destination. The true goal should be to establish the lifestyle you want most once your house has been put in order.”–Marie Kondo in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.
If you’ve read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up or watched her Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, then you’re aware of how decluttering and organizing your home can change your life.
In this article, we provide 3 psychology-related tips to organizing your kitchen. These tips will help you understand why organizing your kitchen is so important to not just your home, but also why it should be important to you and your family. There are many mental health benefits to having an organized kitchen. We’re here to help you uncover those reasons.
The Psychology Behind Organizing Your Home
You don’t have to be a psychologist to know that having a clean and organized space can make you feel better. Think of times when you’ve come home to a clean and organized home: you felt peaceful, calm, and yes, you knew where everything was.
According to Dr. Susan Bilali Haas in “What Your Clutter, Big or Small, Is Trying to Tell You,” when a space lacks organization this often points to inner chaos and dissatisfaction. The ironic thing is that this inner chaos leads to disorganization. This disorganization leads to even more unhappiness. Think about it: if you’re running late to work because you haven’t folded the laundry, then you’re most likely have felt feelings like procrastination or overwhelm. These feelings prevented you from folding the laundry. This lack of following through with organization can cause the present feeling of being in a constant cycle of chaos.
Organizing your home, then, is one way that you can create beauty and peace around you. As the writer Alice Walker says, “Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.”
3 Psychology-Related Tips to Organizing Your Kitchen
Keeping in mind how an organized home can have many mental health and physical benefits, here are 3 tips that can help you organize your home.
- Focus on what you want from your kitchen
When you don’t know what you want from your kitchen, it’s easy for it to become a mess. It’s also easy to not take care of it. For example, when you set a goal of having a more minimalist kitchen that doesn’t have appliances everywhere, then you’ve identified the fact that having a clear countertop is important to you.
Likewise, if you have a lot of things that need to be put away, then your goal will be to have more storage space.
2. Ask yourself what’s preventing you from having an organized kitchen
A lot of times, people are aware of what they want but they might not be as aware of the behaviors that might be preventing them from having an organized kitchen. For example, some people avoid organizing their kitchen because they have a lot of stuff.
Other things that might prevent people from organizing their kitchen might be:
- procrastination and waiting for a day that never actually comes
- seeing their kitchen as a space that is “naturally” unorganized,
- not wanting to invest in storage space like cabinets,
- and feeling like they can’t keep the space organized by themselves
Of course, there are many other reasons why you might have an unorganized kitchen. In order to help yourself, you’ll need to identify the barriers to a cleaner and well-kept kitchen.
3. Address those attitudes and behaviors and focus on what you want more of
Once you’ve identified the behaviors and attitudes that are preventing you from organizing your kitchen, it’s time to work on those behaviors. Dr. Kelly McGonigal, a researcher at Stanford University argues in her book, The Willpower Instinct, that behaviors are often learned through repetition. These repeated behaviors then lead to automatic behaviors. Automatic behaviors include things like: brushing your teeth when you wake up, smiling back at another person when they smile at you, and even basic things like being able to walk. Automatic behaviors are things you do without having to really think about them.
The goal in working on your attitudes and behaviors towards your kitchen is to change that behavior. For example, having a chore chart that shows what you need to do every day of the week can help you factor in what aspect of the kitchen needs to be focused on each day. It will also teach you the importance of repetition since repeated behaviors become automatic behaviors.
How Custom Cabinets and Storage Space Can Help You With Organization
Being aware of what you need to do to change the behaviors that are causing you to have a disorganized kitchen is very important. At Rasmussen Custom Cabinetry, we can help you simplify the disorder that you’re experiencing in your kitchen.
Here are just some of the ways that we can help:
- Having customized storage space like cabinets can help you maintain your kitchen. As Marie Kondo often points out in her book, it’s great to want to change, but you also need the tools it takes to make those changes. Having storage space would be a great one of setting yourself up for success in your kitchen.
- Having customized cabinets that are designed to your taste and needs will help you feel more at home. Because your home needs your personal touch, it’s important to factor in what Marie Kondo calls “things that bring you joy.” If a certain color or style brings you joy, then we’ll work with you to getting those needs met.
Custom Kitchen Cabinets in Utah
Still feeling unsure of whether custom kitchen cabinets can make a difference in your home? Reach out to us. We would love to talk to you.
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