Operation Organization: 5S & Baking Cupboard

On the phone this week, I was talking to my dad, and when I told him how I was reorganizing my baking cupboard. Being the Lean Manufacturing guru, he is, he said, "Oh! So you're 5S-ing your house."

Cricket cricket.

Then Dad says, "You remember the 5S' don't you?".... I think I got one out of 5.... clearly he's going to make me watch the Kaizen Blitz Toast Video again.

So here's my before picture... the cupboard is functional, however I am always looking for the baking soda, the baking powder, muffin liners and small bags of items (eg. walnuts, other decorative items).

First S: Sort.
This means sorting through everything in each work area and keeping only what is necessary. Things that might be used someday, broken items or waste are removed during this process.

For the pantry, it meant taking everything out of the cupboard. I will spare you a picture of the absolute mess this made of the top of my stove. But I also put all of my jars out on the counter to sort them by size. My jars are an eclectic collection that came between recycling walks, thrift stores, Ikea and pistachio containers from last Christmas.

Second S: Set In Order (Organize).

Organize items into their most efficient and effective order. Common tools and frequently used items should be easily accessible. Label, label, label so that anyone could put things back into their proper place.

I decided in my organization phase that I would sort my ingredients into jars. In a perfect world, every ingredient would fit perfectly into every jar, but alas this is not the case in the real world. Since I now have some lovely full containers in my pantry and some additional bags of dribs and drabs to add into my stockpile downstairs out of the way. 

I also wanted to have the five most used baking ingredients on my top shelf  in the biggest containers, and I would also move my brown sugar into a different, more easily accessible cabinet (as I have been using this everyday on my yummy oatmeal). 

I also created amazingly easy and good looking labels using MS Word Autoshapes, and printed them out on shipping labels and then used my lovely handwriting to label each container.

For the items not in containers, I used 2 recycled containers (an old margarine tub, and a recent sample box received by mail) to corral them into two categories - baking supplies & organic/gluten-free flours.

Third S: Shine.

Regular cleaning and maintenance on a frequent basis.

In this case, I wiped down the shelf and added some shelf liner on the top shelf. Easy peasey.

Fourth/Fifth S: Standardize & Sustain.

Keeping step 1-3 going, and not falling back into old habits.

I think the trick in this one will be not falling back into old habits of just throwing things in the cupboard and slamming the door but taking the 3 extra seconds to put it back into it's proper position!

Here is the finished product in all of it's glory... it's really inspired me to bake more, so far I've baked for more days than usual since everything is so easy to get to.