clean your purse, clean your life (a.k.a. how to declutter your life)

This is my actual purse, people. It isn't pretty. 

Someone once said to me (or I read somewhere or there is some famous saying that I can’t seem to put my google on) that the state of your purse is parallel to the state of your brain. In other words, if your purse is a mess, your mind is probably a bit scattered too.

Now before those of you who ascribe to the “mess breeds creativity” school start throwing things at me, I am not saying that a messy purse is the sign of a basket case. (Breakfast Club anyone?) I’m just saying that for most of us, our purse is a really good barometer of how many irons we have in the fire at a given moment and our effectiveness at juggling those irons. For me, when there are more receipts or toys or kid snack wrappers in my purse than cash (a frighteningly typical occurrence), it is time to declutter more than just my purse.

This is, of course, also true of our homes. When the mail/kid school stuff starts stacking up or you trip over things getting to the bathroom or you find that there is no place to put that whatchamacallit, it is time to start decluttering. But how? Where do you start? Bird by bird, my friends, you do it bird by bird.

I’m not going to sit here and say it is easy, nor am I going to profess to have the secret to all decluttering. Marie Kondo seems to have the license on that already. I'm sorry to those of you who have read this far and expected a top ten list that would get your life decluttered and organized in 30 minutes or less. I'm sure there will be a plethora of those blog posts come the new year. And some might actually work. But just like with your health, the old, often cheesy, adages are always the best. Start somewhere. Keep going. Live with only the things you find to be useful or beautiful (thank you, William Morris). Slow down.

So start with your handbag. Empty it out. Get rid of the unnecessary. Start with the things that are simple and let the momentum take you. Move on to the piles of paper work and the whatchamacallits that you no longer find useful or beautiful. Call a friend in for reinforcement. You can do this.

P.S. If you aren't quite ready to get started on your own handbag, I love this photography series of purse contents....