Organize-It Blog

Kitchen Cleaning for Single People – 6 Tips

Kitchen cleaning is easy when you’re single, or is it? While my living situation changed to “singular” several years ago, I only recently realized that I never adjusted my habits to accommodate my status change. I still had lots of cookware, dishes and other kitchen items I inherited from my grandmother, who had never reduced her kitchen tools after caring for a family of four. With lots of pans and dishes to dirty, and my retained habits of cooking for more than one, I never really noticed the extra work I made for myself through the luxury of having too much stuff. Gradually, however, I’ve become aware that the more you have, the more you tend to use. As an example, it’s easy to keep dirtying dishes when you have an endless collection of clean ones at your disposal.

Whether you are happily single, widowed, or a newbie empty nester, your work load can and should be lighter as a single person. When living alone, you can establish your own cleaning schedule for tidying your own messes based on when you make them. This is a great freedom, actually, unless, of course, you’re me. I find the kitchen to be the most problematic, high-use area that requires the most maintenance of any room in the house. In overcoming my own issues, I’ve discovered a few simple tricks to reduce the overall time needed for kitchen cleaning and help keep it looking better on an ongoing basis.

1. Keep only one place setting handy and hand wash immediately after eating so dirty dishes don’t pile up. It only takes a minute to do. I keep the clean, dry setting (including flatware, glass and cup) on my butcher block table for the next meal.

2. Limit your other kitchen utensils to what you need. The more you have, the more you’ll use. Restricting your choices eliminates accumulation of dirty dishes, and you can always store less-needed tools in an out-of-the-way place, and most-used gadgets in accessible areas.

3. Use a small dish draining rack or the Umbra dish mat and drain set for drying after hand washing.

4. Establish a super-fast morning ritual of wiping counters, tabletop and/or stove to decrease the time you have to spend deep cleaning. It only takes a minute or two. You can even time yourself.

5. Sweep in the evening to prevent dirt and food build-up and scratching of floor (if you have vinyl). Better yet, stop wearing shoes inside the house to eliminate a lot of the debris.

6. Wipe off exposed areas of the fridge once weekly with a warm damp dish cloth. Make it a Saturday morning ritual and reward yourself when you’re done.

If you choose only to do number one on this kitchen cleaning tips list, that in itself will make your kitchen cleaning more efficient – plus you’ll save energy by not using the dishwasher, as you can usually hand wash them in only minutes. Yes, it’s old fashioned, but strangely efficient, plus you won’t have dirty dishes sitting around while you wait to fill the dishwasher.

Check this tiny kitchen blog post for more tips on kitchen organizing and this Clutter Control Freak post on things to toss in your kitchen to free up space.