This order follows temperature and time. Doors first, because they are the warmest zone and hold the items that tolerate sitting out; milk and eggs second, while the shelves are clear enough to reach the back; the sticky spot third, now that you can finally see it; deodorizing last, because a fresh box of baking soda only works once the source of the smell is gone.
Step 1: Start With The Doors
The doors are the warmest zone in the fridge, facing the room and taking a blast of ambient air every time the fridge opens, and they happen to hold the most shelf-stable things you own: mustard, pickles, jam, salad dressing. Clearing them first means those items can sit on the counter the longest without spoiling, and by the time you reach step 2 the shelves are half-empty and you can actually see where the cold air enters. Work one bin at a time: pull everything out, bin included, check dates, set duplicates aside. The common shortcut is wiping around the jars and leaving the bins clipped in place, which skips the bin clips and the rubber gasket behind them, the two spots that produce most of the smell you are trying to fix.
Step 2: Move Milk And Eggs To The Back
Cold air sinks and pools at the bottom rear of the fridge, near the vent that feeds it, so the back of the bottom shelf is the steadiest cold in the whole box, which is why milk and eggs belong there. Leave a finger's width of gap between the carton and the back wall; on many models that wall runs below freezing, and frozen milk is the failure mode of overcorrecting. Keep eggs in their original carton rather than the molded door tray. It is convenient, but the door is the one place that swings through the full room temperature range several times a day, and eggs already spent a week in transit. The subtle error here is moving the milk down but leaving it at the front edge of the bottom shelf, where it is nearly as warm as the door you just emptied.
Step 3: Wipe The Old Sticky Spot
With the door bins empty from step 1 and the bottom shelf reorganized in step 2, the stain is finally visible instead of buried behind jars, and you know exactly which spill it came from. That matters because a sticky spot is not cosmetic: the sugar film holds crumbs and moisture and feeds the bacteria that make the smell, and it will make step 4 useless. You will set in a fresh box of baking soda and the fridge will still stink. Wipe with warm water and a drop of dish soap, then plain water, then dry it completely. Skip hot water on a cold glass shelf, since the thermal shock can crack it. And resist the single spray-and-wipe pass, which smears the residue into a thin film that re-sticks within days.
Step 4: Reset With Fresh Baking Soda
Deodorizing comes last because smell is a symptom, not the source. If you put the box in before steps 1 through 3, you are layering a neutral scent over the actual spill and will assume it worked. Do it after the source is gone. Set an open box in a back corner where air moves, not at the front where it gets shoved aside, and not in front of a vent where it blocks the cold air you just spent two steps arranging. Write the date on the top with a marker. The useful part is the box as a diagnostic: if the fridge still smells after a week, the cause is something you have not found yet, most often a spill pooled under the crisper drawer or a door gasket that no longer seals. The recurring error is leaving the same box in there for years.
An audit you cannot see is an audit you postpone. A phone reminder vanishes the moment you dismiss it and leaves no trace behind, while a paper strip taped to the fridge door stays put and visibly gets shorter as each line is cut off. When the last strip is gone, the milk is at the back, the stain is off the shelf, and the baking soda has a date on it.