How to organise your handbag

Image from here

Is your handbag neat and ordered... or is it a mess inside?

• When your phone rings, are you able to find it, get it out and answer it in time?

• When you pay for your parking, can you find your ticket easily?

An organised handbag can make your day so much easier:

• You'll stop wasting time rifling through it to find what you need
• You won't have to empty it out on a counter / table / desk any more just to see through the clutter
• You'll have everything you need at the tip of your fingers (which gives a great impression if anyone asks you for a pen / mint / tissue!)
• You'll save money on bills (ok, this might be just me - I used to throw my bills into my handbag, completely forget they were in there, and then get charged overdue fees when my bills went unpaid..)

If a neat and functional handbag is on your wishlist, here's what you need to do:

1. Grab your handbag & a rubbish bag and find a large clear surface (bed, table, floor)
2. Take everything out of your bag, one piece at a time (don't just tip it out)
3. Sort items as you go ("keep in bag" / "don't keep in bag") throwing out any rubbish immediately
4. Put anything that shouldn't be in your bag away where it actually belongs
5. Put everything else back neatly into your bag, paying attention to any pockets or compartments you may have available. Assign everything (even the tiny things) a home and get into the habit of returning it to that place after you use it.

Done! Your handbag is now neat and tidy (and you'll be able to answer your phone before it goes to voice mail :)

Next Steps: If you are looking to take your handbag organisation a step further, take a look at these great handbag organisers:

Borne Naked (this is the one I use)

Brag Bags

Bagaholics

Howards Storage World

I won my Borne Naked liner and loved it so much I bought a second :) I don't own any of the others, but I am dying to try them out! 

What does your handbag look like at the moment? Do you like to just throw everything in and hope for the best, or do you prefer everything in it to have a place?

How to create a successful daily routine

I'm over at Aspiring Mum today with a guest post on how to create a successful daily routine.

For the whole of November, Debbie is running 30 Days to Create Calm, sharing ideas on how to keep your household calm and chaos-free in the lead up to the busy Christmas season.

I'll be visiting regularly today answering comments and questions on the blog post. I'd love for you to head over, have a read and be inspired to create a routine that will help your day run smoothly & give you a sense of balance in your life.

To read my post and discover more about 30 Days to Create Calm, click here or on the picture above.

Happy Reading!

A peek inside an organiser's pantry..

I've been organising my own pantry this week!

It's still a work in progress but I thought you might like to take a peek at some of the little tricks I'm using to make the most of the space we have, and make everything easily accessible.

I bought my new products from Howards Storage World - I could spend hours in there :)

Dry Goods & Baking boxes: I used to have matching jars for flour, sugar, coconut, muesli, pasta, rice etc. It looked nice but I just didn't use them enough, and could never check their use by dates - I ended up wasting a lot of ingredients. Now I buy smaller packets of these and store in them in the boxes on the top shelf. When I need something, I just take the whole box down,open it on my counter use what I need and then put the box back. It saves a lot of room too. I already owned these boxes - I think they came from Go Lo.

Snack Drawers: These boxes don't have lids, they have sliding drawers, so when we buy snacks I just dump them in here and open the drawer whenever I want one. It means I don't have open biscuit or chocolate packets out in the pantry which is much tidier and discourages mice and ants.
Odeda sml stackable drawer $19.95

Turntables for spices and condiments: These are great because they sit in the hard to reach corners of my pantry and make everything accessible easily, no straining to reach right to the back, I can  just spin them to find what I need. 26.5cm Turntable $17.95

Tiered shelves for canned goods: I got sick of opening my cupboard and only seeing a mass of identical can tops. To find  out what was in each can I had to lift them up one by one and it took forever! This way I can see everything at a glance and I don't have to stack them on top of each other - and there is a lot more room. Expanding Shelf Organiser $32.95

I still have a couple of shelves to finish - when they are done I'll give you an update! In the meantime, tell me about your pantry - is it big or small? Do you have it organised a certain way?

**I'd like to give a big thanks to Alejandra Costello from Color-Coded, her You Tube video was my main inspiration for my pantry organising. I also want to give a big hello to the staff at Howards Storage World who made my shopping very easy and even lent me their tape measure because I forgot to take mine! I bought everything mentioned in this post with my own money and my opinions are 100% true and my own.

My Favourite Organising Products

I've made up a little video showing you my 4 favourite organising products!

These are things I have used every day since I bought them :)



Some more info on each item:

Pop up washing basket: Big W (I'm pretty sure it was $8)

Time Timer iPhone app: $1.99 

Key Chain: $9.36

Magnetter: $29.95 NOTE: I stick mine onto my fridge using 2 heavy duty 

magnets placed behind it :)

Have you used any of these before?

What are your favourite organising products?





** I purchased all 4 of these products with my own money. All opinions expressed are purely my own. All prices are Australian dollars and are correct at time of video upload unless otherwise stated.

How to get your family more organised (without complaining!)

Who wants to help me get organised?

So you want to be more organised - but your family or house mates don't share your enthusiasm..
 
You're not alone. A lot of organising enthusiasts find that one of the hardest things about being organised is getting loved ones on board.

If this happens to you, you have 2 choices:

1. Give up organising and hope life just gets less busy and complicated by itself (sorry, not likely..)
2. Find a way to get them excited about becoming organised too

If option 2 sounds good to you, you need to start thinking in terms of 'What's in it for them?'. If you offer a decent benefit for them, you'll find they'll be a lot more supportive and even encouraging of your organising endeavours.

 Now, you know your family and friends better than I do, so I won't know exactly what will motivate them, but there is one important rule you should follow here if you're looking for a positive result: Do not use bribes - use rewards.

The difference between a bribe and a reward is this: If you hand out the benefit before getting the action you need, it's a bribe (and probably won't work - why help when they already have their benefit?). If you wait until the desired action is complete and then offer the benefit - it's a reward.

If you follow Beautifully Organised on Facebook, you may have seen the Note I posted last night about creating a 'Go Zone' in your home - a place to keep the little bits and pieces (phone, wallet, keys etc) you need whenever you leave the house. If you haven't seen the Note, check it out here (and 'Like' the page while you're there so you can get more free organising tips each week).

On the Note I listed an action your family could do to help you get in the habit of using your Go Zone and suggested that after a week you could tally up who helped the most and offer a reward. This is an example of offering a reward, rather than a bribe.

What type of rewards can you offer?

Here's a few ideas from me.

Kids: 

• cheap stationary/toys
• have friends over for a sleepover
• delegate a household chore to you
• extra TV/Internet/Game time
• some special one on one time with you - like an outing just the 2 of you (park, movie, etc)
• money / vouchers
• pick the next family meal/movie/day out

Adults:

• delegate a household chore to you
• some special one on one time with you - probably better if this is your partner, rather than just a random house mate or neighbour ;)
• an afternoon off (works well if you have kiddies)

Don't Forget! The reward comes after the help, not before.. and you never know, after a week of helping you out they may develop their own interest in organising :)

Do you have reward ideas that work well at your house? What do you use as a reward?

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net