Hey friends! I’m back chatting today about my journey towards a more minimalist lifestyle.
If you missed my previous posts, check them out here, here and here. I’ve been following the advice from the book The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up. What the author (Marie Kondo) says is totally true– when everything actually has a place, you are much more motivated to put it back there.
So one thing in Kondo’s book that initially rubbed me the wrong way was her recommendation to remove everything from your purse at the end of the day. Thinking about how much lived in my purse, I thought, there’s no way I’d do that every single day. But, since I was completing the rest of the tidying program, I thought what the hell, I’ll try this too.
She says that our purses are full of odds and ends– trash, receipts, gum wrappers, snacks, crumbs, etc, and that our purses (that we likely spend good money for) just get bent out of shape and overstuffed. I have two really nice Michael Kors purses, a small and a large, that I use everyday according to what kind of event I’m going to. The larger one is for work and the smaller one for everyday or errands. They are usually full of all the junk she mentioned, plus papers, tons of pens (why do I have 10 pens?), flash drives (one shouldn’t have 3 flash drives in their purse), and wrappers from snacks.
Kondo’s totally right– I haven’t been treating my nice purses very well. I would just transfer all the crap from one purse to the other and never really pay attention to it.
So when I took the time to clean out my purse, I realized this is all I need every day:
The recommendation is to find a small, pretty box that all of your purse contents go in at the end of the day. I found this grey cloth box at Target and it lives in the top drawer of my dresser.
At the end of the day, I bring my purse to the bedroom, empty its contents into the box (throwing away trash) and put my purse in it’s spot on the shelf in my closet. This takes less than one minute.
In the morning, I take down the purse I want to use for the day, and fill it with the items I’ll need. This also takes less than one minute.
It’s easy, simple, and I love that I don’t have to dig around in my purse to find things anymore. I take only exactly what I need and nothing else. I haven’t forgotten anything either, since everything that goes in the purse stays in the exact same spot.
Don’t knock it ’till you try it — trust me, I thought she was crazy for recommending this. But once I forced myself to do it for a couple days, I realized how calming it was to have a clean, simple purse.
This was one of the things that she suggested that I found most hilarious… Second to the sock folding method. However, I really like how my socks are folded now so I am intrigued and excited to try storing my purse this way. I can speak to the amount of shear crap (and trash) that I carry around day after day… Perhaps it’s time to take a look..
Haha I know! I was like… there’s just no way I’ll have time to do that every day. And yes, some nights I don’t put everything away. but most days now I do! It’s nice to have a spot to store my purse that’s not a kitchen chair or the counter.
YES – this book changed my life and I love it! Putting everything away (even out of my purse or work bag) is the one thing I’m not doing. You’ve inspired me to do it. Thank you for sharing your experience and the benefits of it –
It’s changing my life too!! Let me know if you try the purse method :)
I need to start doing this. I have all big purses and by the end of the week it gets so heavy with so much stuff that accumulates.