Tried the 3 can rotation method for 30 days in my garage in Fresno, here is what broke
I set up a shelf in my garage in Fresno back in March with 3 rows of canned stuff, oldest in front, newest in back. I wrote the dates on the tops with a sharpie so I would not have to guess. Thing is, after 30 days I found 4 cans in the back row that had been sitting there since a Costco run in 2022, which means my rotation never actually rotated. Turns out I kept buying new cans and stacking them in front of old ones because I was too lazy to shift the whole row. Now I pull everything off the shelf once a month and line it up by date on the floor before it goes back. Anyone got a system that does not fall apart the second you get busy?
Shifting cans around only works if you actually do it, so the real fix is making the old stuff impossible to ignore. Honestly the sharpie dates on the lids are the only part of your system that was ever doing any work, since a quick look at the top tells you the age without pulling anything off the shelf. Try flipping the whole shelf so new cans go in the back and you grab from the front, then you never touch the old ones until they are the easy reach.