Organizing Your Refrigerator

Does your refrigerator stress you out when you open it? Do you wish that it was more organized and easy to find things? Well this is the right Instructable for you then! You will find steps that will help you successfully clean and organizes your refrigerator. Have an organized refrigerator can make it quick and easy to find things and knowing that the things in your refrigerator are fresh. This can save you time and energy when you are looking for something and you don't want to have to dig through the many things sitting in your refrigerator. I hope that you find this helpful and find satisfaction in having an organized refrigerator!

Note: Read through all steps before starting this activity and do not prolong this activity as the food will go bad.

These items are extremely helpful in through this process and would highly recommend:

• disinfecting wipes
• trash bag
• 2 or 3 clear bins

This is very important so don't miss it! Before you start taking everything out of your refrigerator, you want to have a plan of where everything is going to go. Decide where you want your dairy products, your fruits and vegetables, condiments, meat, and other items. This will be very helpful when you are organizing everything in the refrigerator. Make sure when you map out your plan everything is accessible and in the place that you think is going to be most helpful.

Note: If you are struggling trying to figure out how to organize your refrigerator I will make suggestions of how I like to organize my refrigerator.

For this step you will need quite a bit of room. I suggest starting with the door(s) of your refrigerator. Remove all items and sit them on a large space. Then start with the top shelf and work your way down removing all items and sitting them on the large space.

Now this step may be a little tedious, but is extremely helpful. Go through all of your food checking if anything is expired or has been opened, but too old to eat. This will help rid of quite a few things and make the organizing part go much smoother. I have a moto: When in doubt, throw it out. Never take the chance. If you cannot remember the day you opened it, toss it.

This step is so important because you do not want a dirty refrigerator with a sticky surface. This also gets rid of any spills that may have happened and disinfects. I used Lysol wipes and they worked great!

Now you are going to begin organizing! Start with your door or doors! Organizing can become overwhelming very easily, but starting off small can help. I like to put condiments, dressings, milk and creamer, jam, and dips in my refrigerator doors. I find this to be helpful and better instead of using a ton of refrigerator space for all condiments. Make sure that everything is facing the front and that you can easily see and access the bottles and jars.

Let's organize the top shelf! I like to put yogurt, butter/cream cheese, and eggs at the top of my refrigerator. I feel as if this is a nice system when looking for dairy or egg products and lessens the chances of the eggs being knocked over by something. I used two clear bins to organize the yogurt and butter/cream cheese because they can be shoved to the back easily and forgotten about or hard to find/reach.

Moving onto the middle shelves! The middle shelves can be anything you want. I personally like to put drinks, jars, and packaged items on the middle shelves. I always like to make sure that it will flow. You want to be able to open your refrigerator and know exactly what you are looking for.

Now to organize the bottom shelves! The bottom shelves can also be anything that you want. I like to put leftovers and washed fruits and vegetables on the bottom shelves. The fruit and vegetables being right in front of you when opened makes it easy for a quick snack. The leftovers being on bottom shelf help you not forget what is there and prevents them from getting shoved in the back. When you are presented with something right in front of you it makes it hard to forget about. So when you are thinking about what to have for lunch that day you are reminded of the leftovers and they don't go bad!

Onto a final bit of organizing, the drawers! Most people probably have a meat drawer and a fruit and vegetable drawer. Some people also might have a cheese drawer! I hope I'm not the only one. I like to put meat in the left drawer. I like to put unwashed fruits and vegetables in the drawer on the right. In the large bottom drawer I like to put cheese. If you are like me and have lots of different cheeses for lots of different meals, it can become overwhelming and hard to know what is good and what isn't. I like to put all of the opened cheese in the front and the unopened cheese towards the back, so when you run out of one cheese you just pull another cheese forward. I also like to put deli meat in my cheese drawer. This is mainly because it makes it so much easier when looking for items to make a sandwich with.

You did it! You have successfully organized your refrigerator! I hope that this Instructable helped you understand the basics of organizing and helped you feel a sense of calm and happiness.

Note: To keep your refrigerator from getting messy again, take the time to put everything in its rightful place. Move all open items to the front and put the new items in the back so that you know what to use first instead of opening another item. This helps minimize your food waste and keep your refrigerator organized!