4 Simple Steps to Organize Your Medicine Cabinet

Winter is the perfect time of year to organize your medicine cabinet with cold and flu season lingering. It’s time to get rid of expired medications and make it easier to see and reach your medicines.

Today, I’ll show you 4 steps to organize your bathroom or kitchen cabinet for storing all your household medicine containers in a way that’s practical and easy. 

Organizing your medicine cabinet doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task; it can be quite quick and easy. You don’t need any special materials either. 

Before: Medicine Cabinet Is a Mess

Our medicine cabinet is located in the kitchen. I’ve never really had much of a strategy to keep this space organized. Recently, when I purchased a bottle of medicine we already had, I decided it was time to get this cabinet under control.

Check out the steps below to get your medicine cabinet organized in no time too.

How to Organize Your Medicine Containers:

Step #1

The first step for any organization project is to empty out the space. Take everything out of the cabinet.

As you pull bottles off of each shelf, take note of the expiration date of each. Set expired medication off to the side to dispose of properly.

According to the FDA, expired or unused medication can be disposed of by mixing with used coffee grounds or kitty litter and placing it inside a ziploc bag. The ziploc bag is then thrown away in your trash container.

Step 2

Next, organize your medicine containers by category.

I like to keep children/infant medication separate from adult medication. There have been plenty of times I’ve been woken by a sick child, and through my grogginess, I had to double check to make sure I was grabbing the age-appropriate medication. Separating them can make your life much easier for those middle of the night interruptions!

If you have a large amount of medicine, you should also organize the medicine cabinet by types of medication. Some categories could include: first aid, allergy, cold/flu, sore throat, digestion, pain meds, etc.

Step 3

Then choose bins or baskets that will hold the various medicine containers within easy reach for you but not within reach of children. Clear, short-sided containers are perfect for organizing medicine containers, along with those miscellaneous things like bulb syringes, thermometers, measuring cups, etc.

You may have various bins and containers around the house already. If not, you can find inexpensive small containers at Walmart or Target.

Tip: If your cabinet is tall with one or more shelves that are hard to reach, store your more commonly used items on the lower shelves. (Just be careful to always keep them out of reach of children.)

Label each container to make it easy to grab the appropriate category of medicine when needed. You can use a label maker or colorful washi tape (it adds some fun to the otherwise boring cabinet!)

Medication or first aid items that are not used regularly can be placed on higher shelves in their own organized containers.

Step 4

The last step in organizing your medicine cabinet is to make use of the inside of the cabinet door. This area is often overlooked but can be used in many ways. You may choose to skip this, but I highly recommend you consider it! (For a simple, no DIY required idea, scroll down further!)

Creative DIY Idea for Your Medicine Cabinet

Attach a piece of sheet metal with foam tape to the inside of the cabinet door. The sheet metal is magnetic and the perfect place to store notes, lists, phone numbers, a calendar, etc. Sheet metal can be found at your local hardware store and easily cut to size with tin snips or a saw blade for cutting metal.

Just a word of caution, if you don’t have an inset area on the door, you’ll need to cover the entire sheet metal in fabric or just the edges with decorative tape because the sheet metal is very sharp.

Use cute magnets to spruce up the door and hold dosage charts or emergency contact information of family members or poison control.

Easiest DIY Idea for Using Your Medicine Cabinet Door

Buy a simple command hook and attach it to the door. Then you can clip any lists/emergency information/medication instructions, etc that you need for easy access!

All finished! Now you can easily find and access medicine bottles from your beautifully organized cabinet whenever you need it!

You’ll also save money so you don’t end up buying something you already have (like I did!) And you’ll have peace of mind that you won’t be giving out expired or incorrect medication to your loved ones.