Works For Me Wednesday: Kitchen Tips - Knife Organization

I know that today's WFMW theme is "Greatest Hits." However, I've not been doing WFMW long enough to really have what I consider a greatest hit that y'all wouldn't have seen, oh like, two weeks ago. So instead, we begin a new series of kitchen tips starting with one of my favorites. My very own greatest hit.

Knife Organization

I have been into so many homes of friends and family and tried to cook in their kitchens only to find that their knife situation makes me crazy.

And all my friends say, "Yeah, we could tell!"

I don't hide my feelings on such things very well.

But I digress.

I see knives just stored in drawers or wherever with no thought or method to it. So my tip is: Be intentional about how you store your knives.

For example, mine are stored in a wooden block on my counter top strategically placed to be out of reach of children from any side. But the real beauty of my system is the organization of the knives themselves within the block.

My knives return to the exact same spot each and every time. I KNOW exactly what knife I need and I KNOW exactly which slot that knife is in EVERY time.


I can tell you that in this picture, my knives are, listed from top left to bottom right are: Chef's knife, Sharpening Iron, Santoku, 8 " Carving knife, Bread knife, Fillet knife, Tomato knife, 6" Utility knife, and Paring knife... and of course, the shears on the bottom.

The particular order is not the point, however. It's the fact that they go in the same place every time. That way, when I'm in the middle of prepping my ingredients and my hands are all ookey, I'm not groping around messing up all the handles looking for just the right knife. I can just reach over and grab the correct one every time, pretty much without even looking.

Being intentional about how you store your knives and putting them in the same exact order each time will save you time in the kitchen; both in the knife selection process and in clean-up.

Because who wants to leave ookey stuff all over their knife handles?

(And don't think for a minute that the irony of me talking about knives was lost on me.)

For more Works for Me Wednesday posts, visit Kristen over at We are THAT Family.