First, get yourself two big boxes. One is your keep box and one is your lose box. Ok, let's get started:

Pots, Pans and Appliances

Pull everything out and stack like-with-like items on your counter. If it will help you, write down everything you pull out. I think just seeing what you have will be enough. Are the pans in good shape? Clean? No rust? How many frying pans do you have? How many do you really need? Same with pots, baking items, mixing bowls. If you make cupcakes once or twice a year you don't need four pans, you need one. If you make stew once a year the Dutch oven that came with your pan set is enough, you don't need the cast iron oven too.

Go through everything on the counter and put what you use every day in the keep box. Everything else goes into the lose box. Now, I'll let you pull some of the lose box items out if you use them at least once a month. I bet that's not helping that much. Now, I'll let you pull out items that you use every six months. Everything else needs to go. Don't worry there are a lot of people and places who will be very happy to receive what you are getting rid of. Check out the third tab of this notebook for how to donate or sell the items you are letting go of.

Cooking Utensils

Most households have at least one drawer devoted to cooking utensils -- everything from wooden spoons and spatulas to garlic presses and meat thermometers. If you can, designate a drawer near the stove for utensils you use exclusively for cooking.

Knives

Keep knives near your prep area. Generally you need no more than five high quality sharp knives for food preparation. If your drawers are loaded with more than this, pare it down (pun intended!). Install a magnetic strip on the wall of your kitchen next to the food preparation area and you'll always have quick and easy access to your knives. Get other utensils out of the drawers or other containers and sort through them to discard duplicates or damaged items. Use drawer dividers to keep them neat and accessible.

Food Storage Containers

You can never have too many, right? Wrong. Use a couple of small pieces of masking tape to seal all your containers. As you use them, you'll break the seal. After six months (preferably encompassing Thanksgiving), get rid of the containers that still have unbroken masking tape seals.