One of the first steps in learning to handle your time is learning to organize your kitchen for effective meal planning and meal preparation. Once you get your kitchen is in order, you will notice that the time it takes for you to cook is more manageable and you spend less time in the kitchen.

When you are arranging your kitchen there are a few things you should pay close attention to. All of your food, utensils, and equipment should be arranged conveniently for fast-paced work. Don’t put your staples on one end of the kitchen or even in the garage where some of us store extra food. Keep everything local so that when you go into the kitchen, everything is right there.

Clean out your pantry and refrigerator of all items that you don’t use, forgot existed, or simply have no need of. Get rid of old appliances, dull useless knives, stuff you have had in the refrigerator for eons that is starting to cake-up under the lid or looks green when it was once yellow. A clean pantry is a happy pantry and a clean refrigerator smells heavenly.

While you are cleaning why not include your counter tops, stove, and the rest of your kitchen. Who says Spring Time is the only time to clean?

This next one, I speak of often. Have an adequate food supply. Keep your food cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer stocked with quick-to-fix ingredients that can be used in a variety of ways. Pasta, canned beans, frozen vegetables, tofu, canned tomatoes, peanut butter and jelly (I am not above a good PB&J for dinner), and other convenient yet healthy items should always be in your pantry. An adequate food supply keeps down trips to the grocery store and makes cooking much more enjoyable.

Another biggie for me is to get some ideas for meals. Maybe you are not big on meal planning two weeks ahead of time, You might like to do yours one week ahead of time. But, I cannot get around encouraging you to try to plan at least some meals in advance. This can be as simple as making a mental note of what you’ll have for dinner tomorrow or pulling out ingredients an hour or so before you prepare dinner.

Ever thought about having a Game Plan? Not for playing a game, but for easy meal planning and preparation. Read recipes ahead to be sure you have all ingredients on hand. Keep stock of what is on hand. Make sure your pantry is neat enough so that it is easy to get to what you need.

The Game Plan is to have a logical order for tasks in preparing meals for your family.

Try an organizing coach. An organizing coach can help you plan and execute ideas to keep your kitchen tidy and prepared, helping to make your food cooking time easier. At the Vegan Meal Helper, we have a new organizing coach on board. Cara Mirabella, The Household Helper, is the girl to go to for your organizing needs and she is a part of our coaching team.

The main idea here is to encourage you to get organized and stay that way so that you have a more proactive time in the kitchen.

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