Smart grocery packing; save time when you get home 28.06.2013

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As I said in the “pick the right queue” post, as soon as I am done with my shopping list, I want to get home. Once I have gotten all my goods, I find I have little to no reason to walk around the supermarket. My mind just wanders off to the other things I want to do that day. If you are anything like me, then you also dislike the next phase after the shopping has been done. The unpacking and stacking as I have called it. It is the phase when you get all your groceries home and then need to stack them in the various cupbboards, drawers, fridge and freezer. An exercise that can cost you a lot of time. But you can also save a lot of time, if you spend a little thought on it while shopping.

These days I never go into the supermarket without my three bags. I am not saying that you need to use three, but I am using three bags for my groceries. Why? Well, I have three easy locations for all my groceries. One location is the large freezer that I have in my garage. Another area is my fridge, which happens to sit next to the cupboard where I store my spices, dried herbs and oils. And the third area is my general food stock. This is where I keep any packages, tins, pots and sacks of products that I am cooking with.

I am sure you can already spot this tip coming now. As I make my way through the supermarket, I put all the groceries in the bags for the area that I am going to be storing them in when I get home. If I do this when I get the products off the shelf, it makes it easier to keep them separated when I get to the cash register. That means I don’t have to think about it when I have to re-pack them to go into the car. Then when I get home, I can just drop the bags in the area where I want the groceries to go. It is then only a quick unpack and stack excercise to get everything in its rightful place. No more walking between the storage cupboard, the kitchen, the freezer, the cupboard, the fridge and so on. It saves you time and miles. Really, everything is already in its place. You just need to pick it up and put it down where you want it to be without any running around.

For me, this saves time and allows me to get on with the next thing I want to do. Whether that is work, watching a movie, cooking or whatever. With this simple trick I can just get to it quicker. And it makes me feel a lot better and more structured as well.