Top Tips: Organizing Your Handbag
Is your handbag heavy enough to kill someone? Does it hold everything besides the kitchen sink? Well, it may be time to organize—and downsize:
- Analyze Your Handbag – You may be carrying too many things just because you have the capacity to carry too many things. Does your handbag have many pockets where things can get easily hidden? Is it big enough to carry around large items? If so, you may want to get a smaller handbag.
- Get Rid Of Non-Essentials – Do you really need to carry around an empty bottle of soda, a shoe horn, and a book you finished a week ago?
- Go Through Your Wallet – Downsize your wallet to your ATM card, a credit card, your license, your medical insurance card, less than $50 cash, and some spare change. Make sure you’re not carrying around your Social Security Card or passport, in case your bag or wallet ever gets stolen. Only carry around gift cards if you intend to use them that day.
- Toss Away Old Receipts – You don’t need the receipt for yesterday’s latte, today’s newspaper, or tomorrow’s ham sandwich. Toss non-essential receipts and file away important ones.
- Put Extra Change In Your Piggy Bank – You don’t need to carry $20 worth of quarters and dimes around with you. Carry a mix of coins, perhaps $2 worth, and save the rest at home for a rainy day.
- Only Carry Makeup Essentials – You don’t need foundation, pressed powder, concealer, eyeliner, eyeshadow, blush, lipliner, an eyelash curler, lipstick, lip gloss, mascara, perfume, and lotion. You probably only need the pressed powder and lipstick to touch up, or a few key pieces to go from a daytime to nighttime look. If you want to carry around perfume, get a trial-sized version.
- Buy A Daytimer – If you’re the type that writes notes on little bits of paper and throws them in your bag, invest in a Daytimer or other notebook organizer. Include two pens to take notes. (Yes, some of us prefer not to do it the digital way.)
- Create A Small Emergency Kit – I like to carry around breath mints or gum, tissues, a few safety pins, a Band-Aid, and Tylenol.
- Keep Others’ Items Out Of Your Purse – You shouldn’t be carrying around your children’s toys or other people’s items. Put them in separate, specific bags and keep your bag clear.
- Go Through Regularly – Make sure you organize your handbag on a regular basis – weekly is a good rule of thumb. Your handbag’s contents should be simple enough that you can transfer the contents to another bag within a minute or two.