So much of what goes on in your kitchen takes place on autopilot. After unpacking on move-in day, most of us never give another minute’s thought to where we stash the silverware or how we arrange the spices. But of course, often it’s the smallest tweaks that can make the biggest improvements. We asked professional organizers for their easiest yet most brilliant kitchen habits and hacks to make your space work harder.

The mistake: The spice jars are stacked, stuffed and spun every which way, making it impossible to find what you’re looking for fast. And how long they’ve been languishing in the cabinet is anyone’s guess.

The fix: Skip the cabinet altogether, says Amelia Meena of Appleshine Organization + Design. Instead, stand up spices in a drawer and label the tops of the lids, making it a snap to look down and find the oregano. Bonus points for dating the bottom of the jars too; take a peek every few uses, and toss and replace spices after about a year for optimal flavor.

The mistake: It’s always a bit dodgy to eat the leftovers in the fridge because no one can remember how old they are.

The fix: Use a dry-erase marker to write the date on your clear glass leftover containers — you don't even need tape. The marker washes right off in the dishwasher, and you can get a magnetic marker that sticks to the fridge. "Our family has been writing on clear glass leftover containers for the last year, and it’s been great," says MaryJo Monroe of Portland, Oregon-based reSPACEd. "The dry, cold atmosphere of the fridge sets the ink, making it harder to smear without deliberate force." And glass containers are also handy because they save you the step of transferring leftovers onto a plate for reheating.

The mistake: You store your rimmed baking sheets with your baking equipment.

The fix: "Baking sheets aren’t really for baking — they’re for roasting veggies, toasting nuts, baking fish and chicken — and you probably use them a lot," says Emily Fleischaker, founder of KitchenFly, an in-home kitchen organization service. "But they’re often stored with cake pans, muffin tins, pie plates, and other things you use less frequently that come in tons of specialty sizes and shapes. This is the definition of clutter! Liberate your rimmed baking sheets and give them better real estate than all your other baking equipment. Stacked is fine. On their side is fine. What’s important is to give them their own dedicated space." To make them easy to access, Fleischaker likes to keep them in a waist-height cabinet or even a drawer near the stove. If you've got the space, a basic sturdy rack (like this one) can help keep things even tidier, and your sheet pans can slide easily next to your other weeknight workhorses like skillets and cutting boards.