How many of you are like me and love walking into a store with shelves and aisles of perfectly lined up product in matching shapes and sizes and maybe even in color order?
There is something about order and symmetry that calms our brains. Commercial businesses know this. My very first job was working in a grocery store. Part of my job was to “face” their shelves every night by bringing all the product to the very front with labels facing the same way. Industry research shows that this technique increases sales by reducing visual clutter and helping customers find things more quickly. Using the same techniques in our homes to create an organized pantry can create the same effect. Seeing full shelves taps into the part of our brains that is always evaluating plenty versus scarcity and calms our nervous system.
So for an instant reset of your cabinets, even when you don’t have time for decluttering or re-organizing, just “face” your space. Bring everything to the front edge of the cupboard or shelf and line up the labels. It will typically take you less than 5 minutes to an organized pantry, but will provide great benefits. Not only will the organized visuals calm your brain (see blog post on Your Brain’s Background Noise), it will help you find things faster, making your kitchen more pleasant to cook in. Touching the things in your cupboard also provides a quick inventory of what you have leading to less impulse buying in the grocery store or waste when you have too much of something and didn’t know it.
If you can’t quickly “face” your space, then you might need to do some decluttering or add some organizational solutions. Check out my other posts for ideas or schedule a quick session today.
