Peace of Mind Organizing

Storing the food-storage containers

11 April 2014

Yesterday I had the opportunity to help a client declutter her somewhat vast and varied supply of food-storage containers. Different shapes, different sizes, different brands. We emptied all the containers and lids out of the cupboards and drawers and put them on the dining-room table. I set about sorting them so I could match up tops and bottoms so she could see what she had. There ended up being some tops without bottoms (and vice versa) and the client ended up letting go of a lot of containers, which was great.

While I was doing sorting the containers, I kept thinking how glad I am that my friend and colleague Aby Garvey convinced me to store my food-storage containers with the lid on. Because I match the lid and the bottom as soon as I take them out of the dishwasher (and there rarely more than three at a time in the dishwasher, so it’s easy), I never have to search for one or the other and I never have extra lids or extra containers.

Here’s a picture of my containers after Aby helped me with them:

This makes me happy.

Aby was part of my team yesterday, and after the session, she and I, being the organizing nerds that we are, talked for quite awhile about how people typically object to storing food containers with the lids on. The objection is that storing them that way will take up too much space. (That’s what I said when she suggested it to me. in fact.) But when you store them with the lids on, it makes them so much easier to use. I think it’s worth any sacrifice of space you have to make.

As Aby pointed out people have a tendency to prioritize maximizing space over accessibility, when it comes food-storage containers. But that can be a mistake. If you can’t easily match lids and bottoms, you might be tempted to go out and buy more containers. The collection expands. Loose lids can slip out of sight and become annoying. Accessibility vanishes.

If you’re frustrated by the way you store your food-storage containers, I urge you to pull them all out, put the lids on, and see if you can put them all back with the lids on. If you can’t, consider paring them down to a number you can store that way. (Aby wisely says that, unless you’re someone who freezes food, if you have a really large number of these containers, something might be going bad in the back of your fridge.)

If your situation is such that you need to nest your containers, I urge you to have a set of containers from the same maker, so that you can more easily match lids and bottoms. Personally, I love the Rubbermaid’s Easy Find Lids collection.

Tagged with: aby garvey, kitchen, rubbermaid

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