STORAGE 101

In the last few years, with the company and the children growing in plain sight, our pace of life has really accelerated, despite me. A fan of the "slow living" I panicked a little bit feeling that this precious time was slipping through my fingers. But my passion for my business and my big family gives me wings and forces me to use creativity in order to organize my life well so that I can continue to reconcile these two things that drive me. I suddenly felt a great need to organize our environment once and for all. I felt like I didn't find THE method that would prevent objects from moving around the house without ever going back to them and that would save us from wasting time looking for them. The problem was not due to my spouse's lack of initiative or lack of autonomy for my children but rather because we all had a different logic. If according to my logic, such an object would end up in such a place it was otherwise for Philip, Louis or Simone! It was also not due to the fact that we owned too many objects since our house is far from being cluttered by a multitude of items. However, the objects continued their walk from one drawer to another from one pantry shelf to another and we continued to look for the phone charger, the sunglasses, the little jar of tabasco sauce.  I needed to sort out this whole thing that took me a long time to get that time back and use it in a more fun way.   One morning, Marie Kondo in hand, I decided to make a big change in the way we put things together so that I'm not the only one who knows where things are going. This sentence inspired me and should, in my opinion, guide any action taken in order to achieve change. "Storage produces visible results and neverments.  The real secret to success is this: if you put everything away all at once, not little by little, you can dramatically change your state of mind. The change is so profound that it touches your emotions and irresistibly influences your way of thinking and your daily habits." I have always been a fan of great changes, those that require a greater effort, but which make a real difference in our lives. So I embarked on an extreme categorization operation, trying to put everything in our house into a category x. Those who have been following me for a while know my method of Storage and the way I classify and label the kitchen storage. If you don't know me, I invite you to read theArticle I wrote about it. It was a long-term job, there are many objects in a house (kitchen, bathroom, playroom, seasonal storage, office), but the number of categories had to be restricted for the work to be done properly. That's certainly what took me the most time in the process. The good news is that you can now benefit from this work since we have made it sticker and repositionable labels Les Belles Combines colours. Then I bought storage bins for each category and found the best place to dispose of these bins. For example, it didn't make sense to place the pastry bin at the top since my big Louis started cooking cookies and cakes. So I placed him at the right height so that he could access it without my help. The children's art materials had to be in an accessible place for the older ones but out of reach of the youngest. Always with the aim of boosting children's autonomy, we have illustrated some labels so that even the little ones can put things in their places. This is the case, among other things, of labels for the games room.   This notion of "A PLACE FOR EVERY THING" rather than "EVERY CHOICE IN YOUR PLACE" that has easily integrated into our daily lives has brought the desired result... and even surpassed it! I was able to see some effects that I had not initially envisaged.   The storage effect by category with labels:  

• Everyone now puts things in one place because we share the same logic of categorization.
• We don't look for things anymore, but now we know exactly where to find them.
• The closets of the house are now tidy and this order endures through time.
• Shopping and shopping are facilitated, saving time and money.
• Children become familiar with several important vocabulary words that they easily learn to spell.
• Children naturally develop their sense of organization and logical thinking by learning to categorize objects in a home.
• Children are more self-reliant, as the objects they need are easily accessible.
• Conflicts related to storage have greatly decreased and children are more likely to tidy up as they now have a method.

Despite the fact that we had already done a cleansing operation in the house, when I proceeded to classify the objects, I took the opportunity to purify more. Choosing the size of the bins based on what I have kept (the necessary) prevents us from buying and accumulating a variety of more or less useful tricks. Thus, I do a monthly tour of some bins and a seasonal tour of other bins in order to replace the missing items or about to be. In this way, I buy things only when the need arises and not under the impulse.   In closing, if you would like to have suggestions for bins and storage, I invite you to visit our page Chouchous Products. This page is full of products that I particularly like and that are used at home. By clicking on the links you will be directly directed to the shop and you will be able to get it.