093. Can You Really Declutter Your Kitchen in One Weekend?

Learn why you can declutter your kitchen in a weekend — and why structure, not perfection, is the key to a clutter-free kitchen that actually stays organized.

Can you really declutter your kitchen in just one weekend, and actually have it stay that way? In this episode, I break down why a weekend can be more than enough time to declutter your kitchen when you have the right structure, realistic expectations, and permission to focus on function instead of perfection.

You’ll learn why “a little at a time” often fails for working moms, how simple systems beat motivation every time, and what actually makes kitchen clutter come back. Now you can finally stop repeating the cycle and start enjoying calmer mornings and easier evenings.

•  Why the problem isn’t time; it’s lack of structure
• How kitchen Sprints create clarity, closure, and momentum
• Why perfection slows you down and confidence speeds you up
• What to focus on first when your kitchen feels overwhelming
• How to design systems that work even when you’re tired and unmotivated

A decluttered kitchen isn’t about doing more — it’s about choosing what matters so your space can support your life.

#KitchenDecluttering #DeclutteringTips #WorkingMoms #HomeOrganization #BeautifulLiving

Connect with me:

You can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fireflybridgeorganizing
Here's my website: https://fireflybridge.com

Call or text me: 305-563-2292

Email me: zeenat@fireflybridge.com

Transcript

So, great news! On January 19th and 20th, I’m giving a free class called 3 Simple Steps to Declutter Your Kitchen in Just A Weekend, and so the clutter doesn’t come back.
It’s for working moms who are ready to quickly get their kitchens decluttered over a weekend, and I’d love for you to be there.
There are 3 different class times, so pick the one that works best for you.
The class is just 30 minutes long, and you’ll leave knowing exactly what to do to finally get this kitchen decluttering done! Once and for all!
Now, this class isn’t for everyone. It’s really for you if you’re ready to move fast.
If you’ve found that decluttering little by little hasn’t stuck, if your kitchen keeps getting all cluttered again, if you just are tired of not feeling at home or comfortable in your own kitchen, then I invite you to join me.
On Monday January 19th, I’ll be giving the class twice, at noon and 7pm Eastern time.
And on Tuesday January 20th, I’ll give the class one time at 8pm Eastern.
So between those 3 class times, there should be one I hope that fits your schedule.
And it’s absolutely free! So it’s a great way to start the new year with a freshly decluttered kitchen.
Just imagine what your mornings will be like starting the following Monday after a good declutter. It’s good, right?
OK so go to fireflybridge.com/class to sign up right now. I also have the link in the show notes. 
Yeah, so sign up, invite a friend, your siblings, your mom, anyone who you’ve heard mention that they’re ready to get their kitchens in order this year, OK? Hope to see you there!
Welcome to Organizing for Beautiful Living with me, Zee Siman, The Choosy Organizer.
This podcast is for women who are done organizing everything and ready to be choosy—about what matters, what’s enough, and what can wait.
Because Beautiful Living starts with a little less stress and a lot more intention.
Ready to get beautifully organized?
Let’s make it happen.
So let me guess.
When you hear someone say,
“You can declutter your kitchen in justone weekend, and make sure it doesn’t get cluttered again.”
Your probably respond with:
I totally want that, but…maybe that would work for someone else, but not me.
Because you’ve tried before.
And it didn’t stick.
So today, we’re going to talk honestly about whether a weekend is actually enough time to declutter a kitchen, and why, no shocker here, I think the answer is yes, but probably not for the reasons you think.
Now, last week, we talked about why “a little at a time” often fails for working moms and why Sprints create clarity, closure, and momentum.
So naturally, the next question is:
Okay… but is one weekend actually enough?
Well, when someone says, “I don’t think I can declutter my kitchen in a weekend,” what they’re usually really saying is:
I don’t want to make a bigger mess than I can finish.
Or I don’t trust myself to make good decisions quickly.
And I’ve tried before, and the clutter came back.
Or I don’t have full, uninterrupted days.
You guys, all of those concerns are fair. You’re busy. You like your stuff. You don’t want to make a mistake. And it feels like, whoa, an entire kitchen’s worth of stuff to make decisions about? That’s way too big to take on.
But here’s the reframe:
The problem has never been the length of time.
The problem has been the lack of structure inside the time you had.
Kitchens are fundamentally highly functional, it’s the one room in the house, other than the bathroom, that gets used every day, multiple times a day. So they’re repetitive in use.
And most of the time, they’re very honest spaces, meaning you pretty quickly know what works and what doesn’t work in there.
If something is hard to reach, annoying to use, or constantly in the way, it tells on itself. It’s tattling, right?
That’s why kitchens are actually one of the fastest spaces to transform, not the slowest.
And when a kitchen works, it supports the Thrive Daily principle more than almost any room in the house.
One of the biggest things that slows people down is the belief that they need to do it perfectly.
Perfect categories. Perfect containers. Perfect systems.
But, you know, perfection is expensive. It’s expensive in time, in energy, and perfection costs a lot in your confidence.
A weekend sprint isn’t about perfection.
It’s about function and relief.
You’re not trying to create your forever kitchen all in one weekend.
You’re creating a kitchen that works for this moment of your life. This period of time.
When your kids were very little, you probably tried to minimize on the baby stuff in the kitchen. Most working parents do. But pretty quickly, you realize that time is of the essence, and it makes sense to own multiples, or to own a certain gadget that makes feedings and cleanups easier and faster, or that make it possible for your partner, or the babysitter or grandma to help out.

So yeah, you start to collect stuff. And then what if you have another baby? You gotta keep all that expensive baby stuff. And when the kids are older, you’ve now got to pack lunches, for them and for you, you have more events and activities you have to be at after school and in the evenings, and your kitchen should change with you. With those times.

So yeah, a kitchen that works for this period in your life is really important.
If you’ve decluttered your kitchen before and the clutter came back, listen, it wasn’t because you failed.
It’s usually because you felt you had to rush some decisions without enough clarity.
Or else, the systems you tried to set up were too complicated.
And a really common problem is that whatever maintenance was needed just required way too much effort.
Clutter comes back when your systems rely on motivation instead of design. 
And listen to me on this because let me tell you, I am never motivated to clear up the kitchen. Ask my family. After dinner, I nearly always groan, “ugh, now we have to clean up!” Like it’s the most awful thing I’ve ever been asked to do. And it’s something we do almost every night!
So if I had to rely only on motivation, my kitchen would be unlivable. I’m not even joking. So I can’t rely on motivation. Instead, I rely on simple systems.
Simple systems last.
Complicated systems collapse.
And here’s something I want to say clearly:
You do not need two full, uninterrupted days to declutter your kitchen, ok?
You need focused blocks of time, with a clear plan, and permission to be “done enough.”
A weekend sprint works because it respects the reality of working moms’ lives. The kids and your schedules.
And definitely your energy limits.
This is not about grinding through exhaustion. Professional organizers can do that when they’re hired to come to your house because that’s their job. And they love it! And they will charge you plenty to get that done for you.
But for busy working moms who are determined to get their kitchens in order themselves, it can’t be about pushing through the pain. It has to be about choosing, right? We choose intention over the chaos of a cluttered kitchen.
So I want you to pause and consider this:
What part of your kitchen feels hardest right now?
What would change if that friction simply disappeared?
Just notice what comes up.
For my client Amanda, it was her kids’ baby bottles, and their plates and cups and straws. Two of the 4 kids were just starting to learn how to drink from regular cups without lids. One was still using bottles, and one was using primarily sippy cups.
There were plates, cups, bowls, plastic containers for snacks, lunch boxes. Each child had their special cup or spoon.
That was the hardest for her. It was frustrating. And she knew, she just knew that if those kid things were under control, she would have better mornings and evenings. 
And she’d tried. The first time we spoke, she showed me the specialty bottle organizers she’d bought, and the little individual containers for the straws and the lids. But still, none of that had done the trick. She and her husband were constantly searching for the lids to cups and digging for containers to put in the lunch boxes. 
That was the hardest part, so I suggested when she did her Sprint that she start there. That was the number one place to declutter. It was probably the hardest stuff to make decisions about, but she could make clear decisions when she focused on specifically those things instead of everything in those cabinets and drawers.
And she had a successful Sprint. Her weekend was well-spent. And she described it to me like this. She said, “When I was pretty much done with the kids’ stuff, the rest felt almost simple.”
You hear me say this often: decluttering is a skill that gets easier the more you do it. It’s like math. You don’t want to be forced to practice just because you have a big test coming up. You want it to be easy all the time. And luckily for us, decluttering doesn’t get more complicated as you continue, like math does, so once you hit a tough section of your kitchen, the rest feels easier to get through!
Now Amanda and her husband had been living in their home for 8 years, things had accumulated, and she was able to declutter during a Sprint.
What was the end result? What did her kitchen look like when she was done? 
She says it’s now calm. And it’s functional. Everyone can find what they were looking for, even the nanny. The kitchen is simple to navigate, she said, and when her husband’s mom came to visit for a week from overseas, she was able to figure out where stuff was, even without having to ask Amanda or her husband.
I just love that because I want my houseguests to be comfortable when they’re at my house. So when they can find the tea, the coffee, where the cinnamon or honey or the pancake syrup is on their own, there’s less pressure on me! Because it also means now they know where to put it back when they’re done with it!
That’s a win-win, right?
So here’s what I want you to take with you from today.
Decluttering your kitchen doesn’t take forever. It takes structure.
It doesn’t require perfection. It requires clarity and focus.
And it doesn’t work because you suddenly have more time. No, it works because you finally give the time you do have a clear beginning and a clear end.
A weekend isn’t magical. What’s powerful is deciding that this space matters enough to handle it with intention instead of dragging it out.
And once you understand that, the idea of a kitchen Sprint stops feeling unrealistic and it starts feeling possible instead.
Sometimes, though, what makes a weekend feel ‘not enough’ isn’t time. It’s the emotional weight of decisions that we’ve been postponing.
And that’s why in the next episode, we’re going to talk about something even more important than time.
We’re going to talk about timing.
Why now might actually be the kindest moment to do this, and how to tell if you’re ready.
So make sure you’re following the podcast so you don’t miss it.
And remember to sign up for my free class on either January 19th or 20th, ok? The link again is fireflybridge.com/class.
Have a beautifully organized week.
I’m Zee,and I’ll see you on the next episode.