Find Your Kitchen & Food Flow (Q&A) (Live Recording)

We are what we eat. One of the main obstacles many face when trying to eat healthy and follow a specific diet is food & kitchen organization. Join me in my kitchen to talk about ways to find your kitchen flow and optimize the way you store and use food. Bring any questions you may have.

Transcript

Just waiting to see hey first comment CJ good morning from Napa Valley so glad to be with you again thank you for showing up good morning Emilio good morning Deborah how are you thank you for being here hi Rosemary from Montana any new people here any anyone is the first time live with me just type it in the comments please I want to say hi to you for all the people who are repeating coming back thank you so much I can't wait to be with you today to talk about meal planning kitchen organization and any questions that you may have good morning Karen how are you for those of you who are new if you are my name is Emilio Jose Garcia and I am hi Sarah I am the co-founder of a company called KW professional organizers and I help people declare and organize their lives and meal planning and the kitchen is a hot spot because when you go to any party before COVID now hopefully we can go back to go to people's parties hi Cecilia Vanessa Sarah so where do normally people gather in in the kitchen hi Lenore how are you so kitchen is one of the essential spaces in our homes that we use every single day so thank you so much for being here guys I want you to share in the comments questions that you have for today's session because today I wanted to treat as a Q&A so I don't want to just be talking and rambling I want to answer very specific questions from the people who are in this life with me now so share what are your questions what are your challenges what is something that you want me to cover just share with me why are you here today hi from Virginia hi creative welcome back I am connecting by the way from Waterloo it's a city one hour away from Toronto in Canada minimal space okay I know what does that mean I'm not very sure I was just thinking how meal planning and eating is something that we all have to do right it's such a thing that some people love it some people hate it but doesn't matter what you always have to do it unless you live in a country where food is amazing it's cheap and you can just go out and eat when I was traveling in India Thailand Malaysia and all these countries food there was amazing very inexpensive and I loved it I love not not having to grocery shop I love not having to like meal plan so if you are anymore one of those countries I am yellows because I will I will do that if I could here in Canada so minimal space need to get away from reactive foods chemicals kitchen is the biggest problem area my home would like to be in a position where I don't have piles of dishes at any point I don't have a dishwasher and clearing dishes right away isn't always happening okay Sara thank you for sharing it seems to me that what you are mentioning it it's a lack of maintenance so the first thing that I will recommend you is that you have enough space to put everything away so for example if you look at my counter here it's clean because everything has a home in the cupboards right I have enough place for all my plates or my cups everything good morning Sharon and Alice so for me putting things away when I wash them it's easy and washing them has to happen often it happens every day in my home what so you have to make sure that you have a habit of cleaning up because you have to clean up we actually got a dishwasher here that we didn't have before and it was to solve that problem my wife really pushed me to do it I didn't want to do it to be honest because we rent here and I didn't want to make the investment but my wife pushed me to do it and now I'm very happy to have one so I have a ridiculous cabinet with a top shelf that no one can reach but we don't need that space really so yes this on how to maybe decorate those top shelves amazing Deborah hi Juliana hola so Deborah that's the beautify space if you have empty space that you are not using congratulations because not everybody can say that about kitchens okay so those shelves if you if you are not using them and your kitchen is already declared and organized and you truly don't need that space for anything else because one of the things that I recommend people to do is like use the space that is not easy to reach for things that you don't use normally but you want to keep so for example if you entertain people maybe once a year and you need extra sets of plates dishes that you normally don't use and you don't have enough space in your cabinets I will recommend create a set for those specific situations and put it away in that cover you may need a step stool or a ladder to reach it but you only reach them once every year or twice a year so I will recommend that you use that if that's a need and if that's not a need then display something that you love looking at okay so for example in my kitchen you can see on top of this cabinet this is a very old kitchen too but you can see that there is paraphernalia up there right these things are sentimental items for my wife they are my wife's from my wife family okay so his her grandfather used to carve a lot so we have a lot of our look at this look how many spoons we have on the walls all those spoons and all those things are sentimental items that we are displaying here including this one here too I don't know if you can see it okay all these things are hanging here because they made a lot for my wife like and I don't mind them I enjoy them and I know that they have a big sentimental value for her so display something that you enjoy and if you don't have something that to display right now just get something that you like looking at maybe it's a canvas a small canvas paint maybe you can print photos of family and then have a nice frame and put them up there maybe whatever something that when you look at you really enjoy like cake pans definitely don't use those often yeah absolutely all those things that you don't use often and you don't want to take the prime real state of your cabinets on a day to day basis you can put them up there or you can put them in a place that is not easily accessible like guys the corner the blank corners that is so difficult to reach there that's what we normally keep the things that we don't use on a regular basis Karen says I have too much stuff in my cupboards but overwhelmed thinking about sorting out Karen there is no shortcut here okay and this is me after having done hundreds of kitchen sessions with different individuals and families and in my own kitchen there is no shortcut to taking everything out assessing everything that you have decluttering what you no longer need and then putting back only the things that you need and finding the happy balance between how much space you have and how many things you are keeping if you don't do that process I am sorry to tell you that you will have clutter forever that's the truth and I want to be completely honest with you guys I don't want to be something telling you something that is an illusion because it is not the only way for you to have a declutter kitchen is to have a home for everything that you want to keep and everything that is valuable for you okay if you don't take the time to assess what's valuable for you and only keep the things that are valuable for you there is no way that you are gonna have a declutter kitchen because you are gonna have things that you don't need things that don't fit probably too many things of a specific thing and you will never have enough space to all of those things so the process is that step number one take everything out of the coverage you don't have to do the entire kitchen all at once but you can vote you can go by sections okay for example when we did our kitchen we said okay let's talk about coffee marks okay so this is what we decided was our happy balance for coffee marks for us so we have two four six and then we have one two three four of these okay that's what we need that's it that's what we need for the two of us and for my daughter she still doesn't use those she used this kind and she used this one okay and she has two of these but we normally rinse them and put them back right away because we don't have enough to to for to have for two or three days if we wait for the dishwasher to be run right but this is our compromise of how much space we are willing to give for coffee marks okay when we have family over friends over my wife loves tea tea parties so what we did is like in this cabinet here out of reach we had this extra space and this is where she has a couple of tea pots and then she has some extra stuff in there that's just for special occasions but we don't normally use those on a daily basis so the process that we follow was we had way too more of this and then we had them all over the place but they were carrying our cupboards so we took all the coffee marks out and we assessed how many coffee marks do we really need so we found a balance of six six was enough okay so I would say when we help people guys we do the whole kitchen at once but I understand that if you are alone that may be overwhelming for you or you may not have enough time because things do will get very messy before they get the guy because the process needs time right so make sure that you do the whole kitchen if you can all at once but if you cannot start doing sections okay coffee marks and then plate for example plates this is what we have for plates okay and that's it so right now they are mostly in the dishwasher right here right but when the dishwasher is done okay everything has a home so we unload the dishwasher and everything fits plates all feeding here balls all feeding here coffee marks are feeding here and then glasses going here and calorie goes in here and here okay and then the things that we use for the oven or for the stove they live here and that's it we put everything away we have a home for everything dishes are a highly unpreferred task for me doing my dishes now while I listen to this session learn from this one I mean amazing guys I started with the temps and good things I wasn't convinced I couldn't live without into a box never opened a box again Rosemary that's a great strategy guys if you start doing the decluttering process and you have things that you are unsure of that you are maybe keep going with the things that you know for sure you don't need and the things that you are unsure of create a maybe pile put them in a box put them in a different room create a pile somewhere and don't let them go yet so don't put yourself through that stress that decision-making that is not clear yet put all those things in there and then as Rosemary says if you find yourself not going to that box in a year you don't need them honestly you don't okay and then you feel confident to let them go if you miss that thing something in the box tomorrow you can go to the box and then you have the peace of mind that you did and let it go okay so that's a great strategy thank you so much Rosemary yeah dishes are highly and preferred tasks for me let's talk about dishes you just gave me an idea to manage my overflow of Max yucky amazing so guys dishes I just want to show you something because it's kind of funny you see what we have here so this is where we do our meal planning that right now it's empty because we drop the ball and we didn't do it this week but we are just blinking it so we are just winging it every day but normally we right here but we are eating okay and then in here you see that there is an E s es that's the person who is responsible for cooking that day and the person who is responsible for the dishes doing the dishes we don't like doing dishes my wife doesn't like dishes either I don't think anyone likes doing dishes to be honest but we have to get them done every day because if not the kitchen will be a disaster so we try different ways okay we try you do the lunch I do dinner whatever and then we try one week each that was too much we tried three days each and then at the end after testing a lot of things we found that doing one day each was the happy balance for us that's the happy balance for us it doesn't have to be your system okay communication with whoever lives with you it's key to see what everybody likes because I know some couples that they say I like cooking I hate dishes and the other person say I love dishes I hate cooking guess what perfect maths one person cooks the other person does the dishes amazing everybody's happy but so many times that's not the rule for us it wasn't the rule I don't like cooking I don't like in the dishes and my wife likes cooking but she doesn't want to be my cooking slave either so she wants me to cook too so we do one day eat and then you see these two magnets here that we have so we have a red and a blue so the blue is on top because I was the last one doing the dishwasher so my wife will look at this and she knows that the next time it has to be hair and when she does the dishwasher she will just change the magnets the order she will put the red on the top like that so I will look at that and I would say okay it's my turn to and I'm not the dishwasher so why do we use magnets because we forgot like maybe I did this washer and then she came and I came and then she said no it's your turn and I said no I think I did it last and then we weren't sure so we we decided to create a system for us to follow so that to help us remind who did it last right so that's another way to for dishes and dishes guys we have a dishwasher before we didn't so sometimes you do this is at the end of the day sometimes I like doing dishes while I cook because I don't like having a pile of dishes to do some people do dishes while watching something fun I listen to podcast I watch a TV show I have my phone on a tripod right now so I use the same tripod to just put it on the counter and then I can do something fun while I'm doing a task that I don't enjoy and it doesn't require energy or creativity from me I'm just doing the dishes so I don't have to think so it's a mindless task that allows me to multitask while listening to something watching something whatever music or whatever so is that helpful guys what strategies do you guys have to make sure that you get your dishes done I would love to read them in the chat because I'm pretty sure that you guys have amazing ideas too that I didn't even contemplate so please write them in the chat that other people can read them and maybe get inspired by your idea because that's why we are here for to inspire each other okay so guys what's coming up for you just share what does it work for you regarding dishes and what what's a what's another question that you guys have about around meal planning or is there something that you want me to show you from my kitchen I just want to make this very relevant for you so for a while I've been really good at washing dishes right after using them but this doesn't last okay Sarah so it feels to me that you are trying a system that is not working for you okay so you are probably facing some resistance there so have you tried of maybe trying a different approach I don't know just try something different and again dishes is something that I don't know many people that like doing dishes because they will rather be doing something else I know some people that they don't like doing dishes to the point that they pay someone to come home clean and do their dishes and that's another thing guys if you have the money and you working you make way more money than you being home doing chores just pay someone else to do it for you and cook for you why not if that's an option for you I will totally do that most likely I struggle with coming up with meal ideas and groceries for them ahead of time Sharon guilty of that that happens to me almost every week and I am a professional in meal planning so don't don't worry you're not alone I have a thousand of ideas but sometimes I just don't feel like doing it I just find so many so much resistance to the task that I end up doing a sandwich because I just didn't have the energy or the intention to do something else sometimes I find myself doing something a bit more elaborate but let me tell you that when I take the time to meal plan and and do the grocery shopping and everything is clear and convenient I do a way better job than when I drop the ball and I just wing it every day and then we end up eating stuff that is not very nice sometimes I am living alone right now so I wash every dish when I use it the challenge is to leave it to leave all in its place every night Juliana when I lived alone I had one plate one mug and you know what happened if I didn't do the dishes I couldn't eat so that's that was the best way for me to keep things tidy and I just needed a quarter of a space to keep my one plate and when I was traveling for like four years with my backpack I only had one fork one knife one little ball and one plate and that's it so I didn't have the choice of doing dishes so guys for those of you who are struggling doing dishes that's a great approach put everything in a box except the things that you use and every time you use them you have to wash them by doing this a few things happen here first you create a habit second it's not overwhelming because it will take you ten seconds to to wash a plate a fork and a Mac honestly most likely because you are doing it right away you don't even have to use soap you just rinse it with water put it to dry done if you let it dry and then it becomes a huge style you have to like scrap things way more so and then you just put things away right away because you just dry that put it away done so that's a great approach for those of you who are struggling with dishes don't have a lot of quantity of plates max don't allow yourself to be able to pile dishes okay so many people have found this very helpful and after doing that they started incorporating one more dish two more dishes and some people just stay like that because they realize I don't need more I have enough and when they have company they have something in the pantry but it's not on a day to day use I put kitchen clear on my habit tracker amazing amazing habit tracker great idea guys have it truck it is something that is very visual is basically you create like a square and every time you do something you color it and you can create a habit tracker to make sure that you get your dishes done okay color coding dishes its family member has one set they must keep their own set clean amazing I love that I love that because he's so visual right and that's a great way for kids to teach them how to do their own dishes and don't have mommy doing all the dishes for everybody or daddy great idea that's the box of the box things Juliana try that give it a try honestly it does work like a charm because first this is what happens you will put everything in the box and what dish and and mark and folk do you think you're gonna pick the one that you love the most so you are already prioritizing okay you are already setting the intention this is the one that I love the most so that's the one that you're gonna use on a daily basis and because you have no more choices you have to clean it before eating I can't relate to Celia any suggestions Emilio sorry I have a daughter who doesn't keep up with her dishes well someone again kids is very important to introduce them into the chores since they are little right so that they get used to the idea if they have a chance to don't do something they are gonna choose that so you have to set it as a part of of a routine and some of the ways to have them help you is by offering something very appealing after with my daughter for example she now loves watching like a movie like inside out she's obsessed with the movie inside out right now so we try to limit how much she watches but we use that movie that she loves so much to say Eva you have to put these toys away and until you don't do that we are not watching inside out Eva you have to put all the color in there in the drawer before that we are not watching inside out so try to use something that they love or try to offer a nice reward after they do it and then by doing this a few times they are creating a habit and hopefully they will start helping but you have to be consistent and you have to be strict sometimes okay and there is not a right or wrong way of doing this with kids guys you just have to find a strategy that suits your needs their personality something that is fun something that is not you saying you have to do the dishes try to find something that is more playful something that is more nice to participate in so my three small children are color coded so they know which one is there amazing I love that study amazing thank you for sharing we have newer habit of spraying of dishes with spray and immediately after meals so doing dishes later is that easy very easy no food right on and that's one of the reasons why I do the dishes right away because it's so much easier I just do this done when I let them dry I hate washing dry dishes I hate it so much that that's my pain point I hate it so much that I do them in advance because I want to avoid that frustration yes necessary necessity such a helpful motivator Amelia she's 21 okay so Cecilia because she's 21 guess what what's happening here there is a lot of momentum a lot of inertia of her getting her way right so you are you are just not facing little resistance like I'm facing with my two year two year old daughter you are facing 21 years of resistance of a habit that has already been created so you are not gonna be able to just do this and change her that's not gonna happen that way so clear communication changing the dynamics being strict in a loving way there are so many strategies that you can try but you have to do it you have to set the ground you have to set your boundary and if they don't listen listen don't do the dishes listen I had a sister that she had a schizophrenia okay and she got to the point that she was stealing my food she wasn't participating in anything she wasn't like doing anything right at the end of the day I was able to change her habits by creating very clear boundaries and for me the boundary was I had a section of the kitchen and I locked it it sounds crazy but I had to because I did I wanted to be able to eat myself without having to do my dishes and one time I remember that she was to the point that she she was just screaming at me and she was she had schizophrenia okay but she was she knew what she was doing so one day I remember I was so tired that I say Lydia that's her name if you don't help me if you don't if you are not willing to communicate with me if you're not willing to do something here to make this work for both of us I'm all ears tell me whatever ideas you have I'm open minded to anything that you want to do but we have to do something I'm not your slave I'm not willing to do this for you and she went aah so she went to the shower she was going out I remember I took all her clothes from from her closet put them in my bedroom lucky with a key left and then when I came back guess what happened I was expecting her to be mad at me what happened is that she was on on the tower sitting on the couch and then she saw me coming and then she say Emilio I'm sorry and from that day we started communicating and we started doing things together that was for me what what work that's very extreme I know but you have to find a way to help her realize that the dynamic needs to change great thank you also being honest my biggest conflict is the space tea boxes and yards are I love tea and have many types and use a lot of space that it's the one that messy all the time Juliana let me show you something in our kitchen we were facing the same problem okay we were having a t-section here and then because we started eating a lot of nuts and things like that we were finding that this this wasn't enough space so what we did if you look underneath look so we added this little shelf here with two air brackets on the wall and then in here we have sugar we have coffee we have hot chocolate we have more coffee we have one two three four five different kinds of tea okay so that's what work for us if you love tea what you have to do either in your cupboard either in your pantry either sometimes using small mason jars like if you buy the tea if you buy the tea in big boxes but you don't use all the boxes all at once you could keep the boxes in your pantry or somewhere else and then you can put some of the tea bags in here and you can label the kind of tea that you are drinking okay some of the people they label it on the top and they have it inside a drawer so that they open the drawer and they can see all the top of the lid depending how your kitchen looks like if I were helping you in your kitchen I would probably look around and I will see what space may suit you the best I will also think about the flow of your kitchen for us for example the flow of making tea is this we have the kettle here we have the sugar this here we have the matching here if we need them or we have them here so everything kind of happens in one station so we try to don't make the task frustrating okay some people have the tea there okay one corner and then they have the tea pot on the other corner and then they have the sugar on the other corner so making a tea becomes a frustrating task and that's when people tell us I want to change my kitchen flow okay so try to create a home to be able to store the tea that you buy okay another idea about that topic okay is using your pantry for that and I just want to show you my pantry here for example see we have black tea here that we used to make kombucha and then we have this other tea here but basically this is one great example we have soda, Soda cans okay this is like we use it to just make like pot but we use real fruit with yes soda that is cold so when we buy a box in the supermarket it comes in 12 so we we get 12 cans so that's our balance that's how much space we allowed in our pantry to keep soda so when we go grocery shopping we will not buy two boxes of soda of 24 we will buy 12 so we normally will wait until they are almost done and then we replace them okay by doing this we are avoiding cladding if we were to go to Costco or another shop and we see a sale and then they sell maybe soda super cheap that day we may ask ourselves do we have space to store the extra ones because we only allowed space for 12 cans one box can we store two extra boxes and if the answer is no I will not buy it even if it's cheaper because the cost of me of having cladding and having the frustration it's gonna be higher than the actual few dollars that I'm gonna save if you decide to buy then you have to make sure that you have enough space to store it okay so with the tea you have to take a similar approach okay it seems that seems to me that the solution for me lies in changing my vision of my kitchen I am in the habit of seeing it in my mind as always being overflowing with dirty dishes I would like to have the vision of it always being clean and tidy absolutely Sarah one of the main steps that we always start people with is like we need to understand what their vision is like I always ask them like if you could snap your fingers and see your kitchen finish how does it look like and then when people connect with that vision that's when they get excited that's when they get clear about what they need and why and then I would ask them a few questions to really dig deeper into the why of those reasons to make sure that they are relevant and then once we are on the same page and they are normally then excited that's what happens they are overwhelmed they don't know what to do and then I start asking them questions what's your vision why what are you gonna be able to do when this is finished how is your life gonna change what are the benefits you see them starting to like oh yeah eyes open they start smiling and they start getting excited when you tap into that then doing the actual work is way easier because you have a clear goal you have a clear expectation and you have connected with what you want from an emotion not from a mental spot and this is so important guys this is why I always recommend start with becoming aware of what you need and connect with that new reality and for you is to have a kitchen that is clear of dishes so I want you to visualize that just take a moment close your eyes visualize you entering your kitchen everything is clean all the dishes are put away kitchen is ready for you to just start cooking there and have fun and that's your new normality you have changed it now that's your new kitchen so now you just need to maintain it okay but that's your new reality and that's what you have to like one for yourself that's what you want that's what you shared so you you know that and you want that for reasons that you know it's a benefit for you to have a clean kitchen so I hope that that helps love the idea got it Juliana again guys I'm just sharing some strategies but there are so many other ones that feel free to share anything that you guys that something that is working in your kitchen feel free to share it because I don't have all the answers I only have some of what I have seen what work for me but you guys have everybody has a kitchen so I'm sure that you guys are doing great in some areas too wonderful ideas Emilio what about organizing the refrigerator I have a roommate who has taken it over I had to finally say this is my chef I am organized and they are messy Amanda joy absolutely you need to create healthy boundaries so when it comes to sharing spaces especially the kitchen you have to be clear and specific especially if there are frustrations so in your case it seems to me that you have a frustration that you have a different style so if because there is not a clear boundary of what's mine what's yours and you have different styles of keeping things organized organization means something different for you and for your roommate you are having the frustration of I don't have enough space and the space that I can use it's messy and I don't like so you have to clearly communicate your needs and wants to your roommate have a conversation and find the happy balance from a place that is not you judging them for be messy just from a place of saying hey I've been noticing that I've been frustrated because I I don't know how much food I can buy because I don't know how much fits in my fridge because I don't know exactly what who what's my place and I like keeping things are clean that's what makes me feel well and if that doesn't happen my mental health gets affected and that has a ripple effect in every area of my life so I will really appreciate if we can find a compromise here that we both feel comfortable with okay I know it's a difficult conversation to have especially if there is already a dynamic in place because it feels that you are confronting them but if you don't confront them in a way in if you don't find the time and the the words to to let them know your what you need your frustration is gonna keep growing and growing and then one day you are going to explode and you're gonna have like a comment that they are not going to understand because they don't know what's going on in your head I don't know if you have had conversations with with him or her or not but that's what I will suggest so what works well for me once the piles of dishes are taken care of is putting a smaller ball inside the sink that I fill with soap water that makes it easier to wash dishes right away and even during cooking absolutely I do that before I had the dishwasher that's what I used to do I normally keep kept like a a bowl of some soap with with some soap and then it was really easy to wash them our freezer is stuffed food at the bottom gets ignored too old how to organize this Carol you you responded to yourself too much stuff and this is something that I want you guys to know okay the more you have the more stressful it is to make decisions the more difficulties to maintain the more difficulties to avoid food waste and the more overwhelming it is at least for me some other people they love opening the fridge and having an abundance of choices for me when that happens I feel overwhelmed and if I don't have a plan to use everything that is in there majority of the times something will get spoiled because I don't have enough time to use it all so in your case I will encourage you to buy less to try to go through the stuff that you have in your freezer first and then then cook something and put it in there but maintain a system where you are actually using some of the stuff in the in the freezer before you buy more and a challenge that we always take my wife and I is we try to use everything in the fridge almost everything except spices and sources and stuff that doesn't go bad but when it becomes too like vegetables things that can spoil we always try to go through everything before we go grocery shopping again and sometimes we open the fridge and it's almost empty but you look around and maybe there is a tomato maybe there is lettuce maybe there is a few slices of bread so we can make a sandwich or we can cook something with lentils or with rice or with something grains so there are always options and so many times we open the fridge and it seems it's empty but when we start thinking about it we have still three four five ten meals out of it so make sure that you use everything before you go grocery shopping okay with you kind of what is the best way to keep track of the contents of the freezer I made a checklist in my basics and categorize beans but tend to forget what's in them guys because you have too much stuff that's the honesty that's the truth answer this is my truth answer to you it doesn't matter if you have a big freezer we have a stand-up freezer in the basement we never let it get to the point that we start throwing things out we normally go through those things before they get bad and when you freeze stuff so this is what we normally do okay so for example this is this is one example okay this is what we are going to eat today is chili so as you see it says chili January 2021 okay so it's masking tape and then this was frozen in the freezer downstairs so I put it out of the freezer and I leave it here okay and then this is gonna be our dinner so it will be enough and then we have masking tape or white tape whatever you want and then we have markers so everything is convenient in here so that we can label things and all the containers that we use for the freezer are here and we have three sizes we have one liter half a liter okay and one quarter of a liter and then we have all the leeching here so this system helps us make sure that when we put food in the freezer everything is labeled everything is standardized even we buy sausages or we buy something in package we normally portion it before freezing it okay so we have a we may have a one liter container with three sausages because it's myself my wife and my daughter so we always cook three sausages so we will have a container with three sausages if we make chili we will have one liter containers so portion control what you normally are going to eat when you take it out label everything with a date and don't let the volume in the fridge and freezer get to the point that you don't see what's in there because when that happens that means that you have too much stuff in it honestly you do have too much stuff so you have to stop grocery shopping and start using the things that you have in the fridge how go to Google and if you open the fridge and there is one camera one tomato chickpeas whatever type those ingredients and then see recipe with these ingredients and you will be amazed at how many options you may have okay so I love using the freezer to keep food from going to waste when I get the sense that I have too much that's what I do free city was great with all kinds of chopped fruits and vegetables absolutely guys we go to the market when it's in season here in Canada we buy lots of strawberries lots of fruit and then we have it in the freezer okay thank you yes I have in the past but it tends to slowly revert back to overloaded with their stuff the one thing I remind myself of is it won't always be this way they won't be my roommate forever yeah that that's another thing again like sometimes it's not worth it for you to like try to communicate with someone that maybe if they are not willing to listen if you know that this temporary if you have tried but it's not flowing well and it's gonna be a big conflict sometimes it's just easy to avoid it and then move on because eventually you're gonna move on what would you use to label your freezer containers I means that oh yeah creative so having success by listening foods going into freezer by date they should be used up by not so overwhelming when I open the door now and helps with menu planning up amazing so creative we use just masking tape okay masking tape or painters tape something that looks like this this is green tape or it can be the white tape I normally just writing here fill it and then you can use just any marker works or even a pen and then we put it in the container like this on the lid okay so we write what it is and the date so that we know okay this was from January 2021 so it's been like what five months okay that's fine but again our free set of fridge they don't get over back to the point that we are so for example this is the freezer that we have at home on the upstairs okay so we have some some crepes some bananas and then we have a curry that we made and then in here we have ice and then we have a staff for our daughter Eva and more ice fruit and vegetables and then that's it and then in the freezer downstairs that's where we keep everything that we don't use on a weekly basis so our system is when we cook we cook always more quantity and we put it in the freezer downstairs okay so when we are me planning for the week we may go downstairs and we may pull up three four five containers and then we will put them in here because that's for the week we have the luxury of having an extra freezer if you don't have an extra freezer then you cannot cook as much quantity because you don't have enough storage space and that's why we invested in a freezer because we knew that it will help us save a lot of time a lot of money and convenience and here in Canada the winters are really long so Samantha likes going and picking her own strawberries sometimes we go to the market and we see a huge deal on tomatoes that normally are very expensive in the winter time so when we see those deals we have the luxury of being able to buy a big quantity and then we do something with that and then we freeze it and then during the winter time when things are not in season we have pizzas we have tomatoes we have strawberries we have raspberries we have so much stuff that holds well frozen okay hi Richard freezer tape 2 thank you thank you creative yeah so those are some of the studies and thank you so much for the people who are sharing their tips because I love reading them I always learn something new so feel free to share whatever is working for you because we can all get inspired by so guys if you are enjoying this session as always inside time it works by donation so if you want to support me and my work and if you get value from this I will really appreciate if you can make me a donation and you can also support me in other ways like you can follow me you can share my content with other people that may benefit from it and one of the things that you can do that helps me a lot financially speaking too is leaving me reviews in my audios if you enjoy my audios go to the end and then you have the option to review and then just write your owners review write something for me that I can see it and by me answering those reviews inside time it rewards me for that and also I have courses I have a self-care course a 10-day self-care course that you can take if you are a member of inside time it already it's free to join you don't have to pay extra and it's a 10-day self-care course that is it I think is really good it's very like in depth and the way that you can support me in that is by engaging in the course classroom okay every time someone engages in there and ask a question or share something I can reply to that and then inside time it will reward me for that and thank you so much Steve for your donation and I am submitting this week my new course about minimalism so that that will be live hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'm very excited about that the mason jars in your cupboard on their sides they do not sleep so Liz let me show you that so this is the creation of a system that we have okay a couple of years ago we started eating more plant-based and more like so we stopped eating meat and fish okay so basically we invested in in a lot of nuts that was a big part of our diet so we started with this kind of system because we use the the bullpunt here and the bullpunt normally they started doing your own bring your own yard kind of program so we used to go to that store with this this jar okay we used to go to that store with this plastic jar because it's way lighter and then we used to fill this out with pistachios almost whatever we needed and then we knew that it was the perfect portion to put it in here okay and in our cupboard we always have something using this big mason yes okay so the first system that we had was to have the mason just like this okay so we didn't have the shelf here so we have the mason just like this but what happened is that the volume was getting too much too many mason jars and we didn't have enough space so we started doing this of the opposite we put them like this and then because I'm so handy I created this extra shelf in here and now we can feed double the amount and the labels are on the leads so this is why you can see so many so the secret guys of making these old cabinets functional is not by doing a kitchen renovation I mean that's an option but that's really expensive sometimes and not doable for some of you you can use the same ones and you can just use the vertical space better how to do that in my case I have I had some good in the basement that I use but if you don't have good you can use this so this metal thing is a double shelf okay and Sarah I saw your question so I'm gonna ask it really quickly okay so this is the solution that I'm talking about that you can get some and then you can optimize the the vertical space of your cabinets this is another one for plates okay lazy Susan's are great and then I have this one here again okay so you can find this in any hardware store they are very inexpensive and they can help you really make the best of your cabinet if you have honestly if you have a few air brackets and some good and you are able to cut to them you can just add an extra shelf in there and could be any kind of book it doesn't have to be anything special and I'm sure if you are not able to do this I'm sure you have a friend at this handy that can probably make it for you you just invite them for like a coffee or dinner and you just ask them to help you do that okay so Sarah a question about your course how long will the audience be available for us and the option to ask your questions that's it all in after today's no Sarah you once you enroll in the course the course is a 10-day course is designed to be 10 days in a row or you can do session 1 and then wait two days and then session 2 but you you have access to that course forever it doesn't go away okay and you can ask as many questions in the course classroom as you want and the more you ask the more I can support you and the more that inside time it rewards me financially too because they want people to be engaged they want people to really get involved in the course to really get the transformation going and they know that by you committing to asking questions and by me answering them we are helping each other and we are helping all the other students to to do the same so yeah and then it doesn't end after 10 days absolutely no you have lifetime access to that course okay okay that's good to know yeah and if you are not a member of inside time and if you are not paying for members plus I think you can just buy that independent course for $20 and that's it I think it's $20 for the course I'm pretty sure but if you are a member of Skillshare sorry Skillshare of inside timer then you will have access to that course and no extra cost okay great thanks you are most welcome Sarah so guys any other questions that you have around kitchen anything else that you want me to show you or any other frustrations any other tips that are working for you that I should know about another thing that we do how do you stir pants okay let me show you the pants so under the oven that's what we keep like we used to keep the pants here but now we keep all the oven stuff related here and the barbecue utensils and here too okay and then for the pants and pots we have this solution here okay so we have three pants that are in here okay so we have two of these sides and we have a smaller size one here okay that's really what we need we don't need more than that and then we have all the potting here we have a few little pots because we don't have a microwave so every time we need to warm up something we normally use either the toaster oven here or we use one of these pots and then we have when we make soup or something that is bigger that we need more quantity this is what we have in here so we have two rice cookers in here we have a grill that we use pretty often that's why it's here we have the food processor in here and then we have we have one so this is a big one of the bigger pots that we have then we have two okay and then we have the third one is all the way here because it's the one that we use the least so that's why it's all the way in there I know that this is not a very accessible space but this is the kitchen that we have we are still young enough that we can get on our knees so these are the pots how I have to say that if you guys are if you cannot kneel like this this is too difficult for you to reach I used to install dry out so in this specific situation how the client will work is that you will have a glide out here that will come out and then there is another client in there that will come out this way so everything that is in there will show up in here and then when you are done you will put that back and then put this back in so if you want to utilize the blind corner better light outs maybe can be a good solution for you they are a bit pricey but if you are looking for convenience and practicality and you need to it's a great solution okay mine take up lots of space Vicky you have to do a decluttering session too you have to really assess what do you really need do you have more than you need are you using them on a regular basis and if you are not but you don't want to let them go because maybe you use one pot maybe once a year for a family event that pot doesn't belong in your kitchen because you don't use it on a daily basis weekly basis either monthly basis that belongs in a storage unit in your pantry in the basement whatever you can okay I've refrigerated storage or did you cover already I think I did cover the refrigerator I can go back if you want organizing big potential drawer ideas with big potential shadow we we have this with little things okay but all the big stuff we opted to do this okay you can use Amazon yeah or you can use this is from IKEA like two or three dollars I think this is Amazon yeah okay and we just have the things that we use and again when I do kitchen sessions with people they normally have way too much stuff way more than they need so make sure that you really assess and do the decluttering process before organizing because it doesn't make sense guys to organize things that you don't need especially if you are frustrated because you don't have enough space you have to do the decluttering you have to be clear with yourself connect with that vision that you were trying to create why are you organizing your kitchen why what are you trying to change and that's got that's gonna be your motivation to keep going organizing your yeah okay how do you guys organize your food shopping I tend to run really low on basics and then have to run and shop on short notice I buy things from different store because I have intolerances which makes shopping a big effort sometimes especially so thank you Ricky I have three parts and two only yeah amazing honestly what else do you need you don't need more than that unless you are cooking at the same time so shopping this is what we do okay this is for for salad so this is what we do we have for example let's say that we are let's say that I come here okay I take my soda and then I notice that there are only two cans of three cups left so I will come here and I will say oh I will need soda next time I go grocery shopping so I will come to my board okay and I will write it down here and you mentioned that you have different places where you buy things from we do too we have a market we have fresh cut at this the grocery store that we normally go and then we have a miscellaneous one sometimes it's a the bulk bag sometimes it's another thing and then we have a to buy for things that don't fit on these categories so we will write it here okay and then when we go grocery shopping we will write that down in a piece of paper and we will take it with us you may be thinking why don't you use your phone if you use your phone that's great I don't like using my phone for grocery shopping I don't like going grocery shopping and using my phone to see what I mean I hate it my wife that's too that's why we have this system that's have to be like this for you you can create whatever system you want you can use Google keep you can use notes on your phone I don't care what system you use as long as you know where to write things down and you rely on that system and if you have other people involved just tell them anytime you open something and it should let me know write it here anytime we come to the pantry for example let's say that I don't know we use this crash this crash tomatoes to make stuff right so we have space for four of them so if I'm taking the last the last one and there is only one left I will write down and I will write by one two three okay because that way I have enough storage space to put it in there so that's another thing that once you have once you do the decaltering and you have a clear system on how much you can have of it that's going to help you know how much you can buy and then that's gonna help you also notice when you are in shortage of something okay I don't know if that helps I think that was helpful thank you I cleared out all the attunces that I don't use regularly and put them into a box in the basement that makes organizing and accessing it much easier Sara absolutely and for all of you who have a lot of stuff that maybe you don't use on a weekly or monthly basis do that have a temporary not a temporary have a place where you can store the out-of-season kitchen stuff that you don't want to let go of because you use them maybe once or twice a year but don't find space in your cabinets if you don't have a lot of space to store those things that you don't use on a regular basis because then your kitchen floor is going to be frustrating and you're gonna be storing things that you don't need to store in the kitchen okay so what else what else do you guys have for me another thing that we use a lot while I wait for more questions is that we use timers a lot and timers really allow us to be way more efficient allows us to avoid things for burning things in the oven to be forgotten if we put the laundry and we need to switch from laundry from washing machine to dryer or we need to hang the clothes outside we put the timer and then we don't forget and we make it very efficiently so really timers help us be a lot of way way way more efficient some of the other things that I have here is like some other things that I display is this yeah so now it's time so yeah so that is how I don't know if you have any more questions I mean my name is Rona yeah they got you need to be carefully frustrated about graduation you need to have a system where you don't wait a lot of time right and they wait for you to go inside if I do having a nice make sure that you don't forget anything because if you don't forget something going back to the three strokes is very frustrating right and a lot of time probably gasoline you have to drive there so very frustrating to have to do that and do that system that will help you avoid that I think I need to tell my mother about this because she gets excited with other things you're pretty I do too everybody that and that's that's what happens you put the time there and if you're making pasta guys and the pasta is takes seven minutes why do you have to think about it why do you need to have pasta that is yours or her so just put the timer and then it did done thank you for your donation thank you thank you thank you so what is coming up to you before I go yeah while I'm here I also like I have to show you some places too so I think I couldn't with you oh that's a good idea to keep things cool because if it's hot you don't want the stuff to like a good time I do no because I find kitchen bags are very difficult to wash are very difficult to reuse they break more easily and to read it I have never tried them so I can't really say from experience if they are no nothing but I can't containers for free shit uh just getting in there is like a restaurant store here like a booth I think you can find them in any I would say at the good work for example they're selling at any time so I would not those ones are coming from a hospitality uh book like where restaurants go and buy so those are the containers I normally get them but they are good quality plastic so you can wash them and reuse them um and they break that they they don't break easily so that's why I like it we also have glass containers so we find that they take more space then we'll be able to uh school but we don't have some truth for the okay okay uh let me get my battery one okay I have an idea I'm gonna connect my phone to the and hopefully okay now I think I won't lose power yeah so thank you maybe yeah can we see your freezer again yeah thank you this has been very helpful so this is uh the freezer that we have upstairs okay so as I was saying we don't have a lot of things in here other than fruit that we use for smoothies and then we have vegetables like this and corn in here we have ice and then we have some more fruit a little bit of chocolate and then this is to make uh like popsicles homemade popsicles and then in here we have some bananas to make smoothies okay and then we have an ice pack and then we have this is a curry that I used this from February 2021 and this will be probably the lunch for tomorrow that's why it's here but normally we go to the freezer that we have downstairs we take the things that we are going to use for the week and we normally put them in here and here okay but we don't use this freezer for to store all the things that we cook because it's not big enough okay so that's why I always recommend that you guys invest in a freezer because freezers are really can save you uh help you save a lot of time I found that even grass containers can go into the freezer so I upcycle grasses with leads to store yeah uh as long as you don't fill them too much they should be fine thanks Amelia I want to get me planning in order now used to like try new recipes but wash over one by cleaning up step by step was work for me yeah absolutely making little progress it's better than no progress helpful thank you okay guys if you don't have any more uh questions I'm gonna let you go uh this Friday I won't be here because I am camping I'm going camping with the family so I will see you the following Tuesday and what topics are you guys interested in me covering uh I have a a session for Tuesday but I need a session for Friday next week so what topics would you like me to cover next thank you Sara I will try to enjoy I don't like mosquitoes so that's gonna be a struggle for me but I'll try and make my best paper clutter congratulations yeah I'm I just finished everything the editing Sharon and I am just uploading it now when I finish this session I'm just uploading it to insight timer paper paper okay paper it is what specifically about paper you guys want to know you say paper carry but what would you like to see traveling light will be interesting too paper filling systems maybe some tips on in daily self-care how to be ruthless burn everything creative get a lighter and burn all the papers you have closest closest closest office organization how to handle it when it comes in the door kids papers from school mail do you scan absolutely I have very little paper guys I pretty much don't scan anything I burn everything okay paper cloud I actually did a paper session not long ago and I show all the paper management did anyone go to that session from here I'm just curious did you guys go to that session it wasn't like probably a month ago thank you creative I'm curious to know he's not kidding burn baby burn I'm not kidding guys I like to keep it of pantry items like spices rice beans but always easy to put together I mean then yeah we always have emergency meals like craft dinner or pasta with an easy sauce or stuff like that before I found you thank you I went thank you immediately I love that take it camping and you see the skinning fire I actually did that you know that one time guys I took a big bag of papers thinking I'm gonna burn them down I was going camping and I put them in the fireplace and there was no way I could burn them because when you put all the papers together there is not enough oxygen and the fire will not get so I had to go paper by paper make a ball with the paper and throw it in the fire and it took me three hours to burn everything so it's not as easy as you think um where did you burn your paper uh you can burn it in uh in in any fireplace uh we don't have a fireplace in our home but anytime you go camping you can burn it there we have friends that they have like backyard fires so we do it there uh we shred too but sometimes shredding costs money so it's like we we do have a shredder at home but if we have a lot of volume uh we normally just have fun and have a fire I have put them in a paper bag and set fire to the bottom of the bag yeah well you were lucky organizing ideas and notes could be helpful great ideas and insights tend to get lost in piles yeah notes okay uh yeah guys we have the shredder and then uh we don't let it pile up that's the thing if you have a big pile of shredding it's a pain in the butt but if every time you have a paper your your maintenance is you just put it through the shredder then you just don't let a big pile to form uh same with someone was commenting about what to do with incoming paper just don't let it come into your home young male gets out half a recycling bin under your mailbox you open it throw it there uh stuff from school like look our fridge has some stuff from Eva but when it goes when she brings something else we take that one that one out goes to recycling and then she puts the new one in there and if we really love it we snap a photo of it but we don't keep the we don't need to keep the the original paper uh sometimes we put it in her journal and we glue something in her journal uh but it depends if it's really good yes but if it's something like she's just learning how to color so it's not a Picasso right but it's it's your choice you can choose whatever you want to do with it but just don't let it frustrate you and don't let it clutter your space okay okay so i will do the paper clutter then are you guys interested in the how to or would you like to also do a little practice where we are kind of like uh do a little meditation about paper and see what emotions are coming up for you see if you are lacking confidence just shine the light on on the reasons why you are not keeping up your paper uh both will be great yeah because one of my lessons in my new course of minimalism is paper and every lesson in that course has a practice and then a how-to and i found that the practice comes first and the practice helps you really understand what's going on here what's your struggle and what is the resistance that you are facing and once you understand and become aware of that that's when you can then apply the how to to the process okay both it is practice plus how to i will basically give you guys one of the lessons of the course uh if you recommend going digital then how to organize your digitized papers yeah i will talk about that organizing the snapshots you take of the paper amazing okay okay i don't want to talk about paper anymore because that will be the topic of next friday not this friday the following one okay so i'm gonna let you guys go thank you so much for being here again if you like this session uh and you can support me with a donation i will really really appreciate that uh and i hope to see you guys on tuesday have an amazing rest of the week and i will enjoy camping okay i will see you on tuesday adios