On the page, with ideas to organise your kitchen, you learned how to declutter, clean and organise your kitchen, as well as habits on how to maintain your space. On this page, I’ll explain how I organise my kitchen, and the information below is focussed especially on how I organise kitchen countertops. I link this with the key idea of being deliberate on how the kitchen flows and how you improve your kitchen.

I hope you are excited to learn how to organise kitchen countertops, let’s get into it.

Here are some considerations I made on how to organise kitchen countertops in my place:

I don’t have a coffee machine at home, the kitchen is too small, it is too messy, and I like going out (where someone makes me the coffee ;-)
We have a dishwashing rack on the counter. This is not the 100% solution to how to organise kitchen countertops but we go through too many dishes not to always have them out. It allows for some items to dry before the next onslaught.
We have a stand that holds cups, again not a perfect how to organise kitchen countertops solution with a mug stand (placing cups in the cupboard is much ore organised) However, my daughter made the stand so for a few years we had it as a sentimental item.
I have hangers for towels
We have a section for bottles of cleaning material
I have tissues and the kitchen roll out at all times

Organise kitchen countertops Notes:

If I was single I would put my dishwasher rack away and probably don’t need as many kitchen towels and papers for small spills.

The cup stand takes up space and makes the bench harder to clean. It is also a woodwork process my daughter made over a term at school. It stays for now.

How you organise kitchen countertops and your stage in life

Like anything in organising even how you organise kitchen countertops reflects your life situation or your stages in life. With a family of four, this space is busy it needs to be cleaned easily, fast, and often. But it has a lot of traffic as well (hungry teenagers, anyone?), so for us, keeping a few more items out is better than in another stage of life.

I have a clear vision for how I’ll organise kitchen countertops in future: hardly any mess, a beautiful coffee machine, and maybe a cooking island. Reality is that I am a few years away from that and that is fine.

Decisions for when organise kitchen countertops

The answers to these questions will help you find out how to organise your kitchen countertops:

What do you want to keep on your counters?
- Why?
How much is too much or too little?

Feel free to experiment but also be deliberate. If you don’t want to keep items on the counter e.g. toaster, sandwich press or dish wash rack, where will you keep it? This will have to be a shelf or cupboard, it needs to have space to easily put this item there (e.g. no clutter, no difficult maneuvering).

Organise kitchen countertops - Going back to habits and Routines

Besides a clear easy spot, you need to add habits to putting these items away once they have been used.

Two examples of the decisions, habits and routines we use:

The above examples I call “closing the loop” when you organise kitchen countertops or want to keep them organised. Make sure, you don’t leave half-finished jobs throughout your kitchen, these things can clutter your mind as you still have to put xxx away. Not to mention you get that sinking feeling when you come home and the toaster from breakfast is still out.

Another thing that I really like about the combination of homes, habits and routines is that I can pull the kids up for not finishing a job. When talking about how to organise kitchen countertops, they know where each item goes and what needs to be done to put it back. Will they always do it? Of course not (if you have kids that do, please send me a note), but it teaches them life skills. It is less mum nagging and more them not following a logical system if they don’t do it. Learning how to organise kitchen countertops is so easy because it can be reinforced in minutes, if you have teenagers the kitchen is their second favourite room in the house (besides their bedroom) a great spot to teach them those live skills.

Other considerations when you learn how to organise kitchen countertops

I mentioned hotspots on this page. When we learn how to organise kitchen countertops, we need to be very mindful of hotspots. "Hotspots" is a term coined by Flylady that means spots anywhere in your house that attract a range of random items. The kitchen is a prime candidate for having one or several hotspots.

Do you have hotspots on the kitchen counter?

Hotspots, can be the reason why you haven’t been able to organise kitchen countertops so far. If you have any items left out on the kitchen counter or if this area gets messy quickly you might have hotspots. An example of a kitchen bench hotspot could contain a school note, a toy, candy from a birthday party, an unemptied lunchbox, etc. This is a mixture of items that don’t belong on the counter (school notes, candy) and jobs not completed (the used lunchbox). I encourage you to look at these items and pick up all the papers in the kitchen, either bin them or put them on your desk. Then look at the toys left in the kitchen and put them away in the toy box (or your kids' room).

“The idea of clearing hotspots is that we spend little time putting items away in their appropriate spots. This takes practice but is worth the effort 1000 fold.”

— Inspired by FlyLady

If you are very aware of what type of clutter gathers on your kitchen bench, you need to think where it should go instead; it needs to go off the kitchen bench. If you do this daily, maybe spend 10 to 14 minutes clearing these hotspots and noting what is causing them. It will either dissolve or significantly reduce the messy area in your kitchen.

How to organise kitchen countertops if you have hotspots on your counters?

If you like to keep your keys, wallet, phone and other items on the kitchen counter (or they keep ending up here). You can put a bowl on the kitchen counter to create a home for items that might not have one.

How to organise kitchen countertops in a nutshell

On this page I have provided practical advice on how to organise kitchen countertops, emphasising deliberate choices that align with your kitchen's functionality and flow. She recommends keeping countertops as clear as possible to simplify cleaning and minimise clutter, while acknowledging that life stages and kitchen size influence decisions.

Key suggestions include:

Deciding what essential items to keep on counters, such as dish racks or towel hangers.
Creating routines for regularly used appliances like toasters and sandwich presses, which should be stored away when not in use.
Addressing clutter hotspots by identifying items that don’t belong and allocating them proper storage spaces.

As always, I stress the importance of habits and routines in maintaining an organised kitchen. By “closing the loop” — ensuring items are put away after use — the space remains functional and tidy. These organisational strategies also help teach life skills to family members.

Take this advice onboard but be encouraged to experiment, adapt methods to your needs, and invest a few minutes daily to achieve a more streamlined kitchen.