2. Decant dry goods into square containers
Decanting is the step people most often dismiss as an aesthetic indulgence, and it is genuinely functional for one reason: a packet cannot stand up, cannot stack, and cannot be seen into.
Decant the things you buy repeatedly and keep long: pasta, rice, flour, sugar, oats, lentils, nuts, cereal, dried fruit. Do not decant things you buy occasionally or that come in their own perfectly good container — tins, jars, oils and anything in a resealable pouch you are happy with.
Choose square or rectangular containers, not round. Round jars waste roughly a quarter of any shelf to the gaps between them, and they do not stack. Square containers with a flat lid stack two high and line up against the back wall with nothing hidden behind.
Match the container size to how you shop. A container that holds less than one pack means you are left with an awkward remainder every time, which defeats the purpose. Measure a typical bag and buy the next size up: usually 1.5 to 2 litres for pasta, oats and rice, and 3 to 4 litres for flour if you bake.
Cut the cooking instructions and the best-before date off each packet and drop them into the container, or tape them inside the lid. This is the detail that makes decanting survive contact with an actual Tuesday, because otherwise you will be searching for pasta timings on your phone forever.
Airtight seals matter for nuts, seeds, flour and anything that goes rancid or attracts moths. A clip lid with a silicone gasket is worth the extra dollar per container.