Shoes, Purses & Wallets. Oh My!
/Today my goal was to go through my purses, wallets and shoes as the “sub category” in Category 1: Clothing. Tidying my shoes was a little tougher than I thought. As a mom of two, gone are the days of 5 inch heels and going out on the town with my girlfriends. Some of the shoes were really nice and some I had paid a pretty penny and wished I never did. But with my new tidying skills, if it didn’t spark joy, I thanked the item and parted ways. Even some of my handbags that I’ve had for decades (OMG...I can’t believe I said that) now no longer sparked joy.
How did I decide what to keep and what to let go? I held each piece in my hand and asked myself “Does it spark joy?” If I found myself on the fence, I asked myself a series of questions:
When was the last time I used it?
Am I keeping it because I spent a lot of money on it but it no longer served it’s purpose? Or still has original tags and never used?
Do I see myself using the piece in the future?
I was surprised to feel RELIEVED to let many of the pieces go because I didn’t feel obligated to hold onto something that I wasn’t using or made me feel happy when I saw it. It had fulfilled its purpose.
After figuring out which handbag, wallet or pair of shoes I wanted to keep, I was most excited to organize them. Using my Instax camera (basically a Polaroid), I was able to still use the dustbags or shoe boxes to keep them dust free, but now I CLEARLY knew every item I owned and all sparked joy :).
Take-Aways:
From Day 1: ALL my clothes are now either hung or folded in a drawer! I had at least TWO PLASTIC BINS of clothes to put away seasonal or as “keepsake”...but after “Konmari’ing” my closet, everything is out in the open or in a drawer. This fills my heart with so much joy I don’t have any “hidden” clothes that years later I go “Where did this come from?”
Only keep things that bring you joy. Discard the rest. I probably cleared HALF my purse/wallet collection (shocking I know) and about two-thirds of my shoe collection. I even found that I had DUPLICATE shoes because I had forgotten the original pair!
Donating things or reselling for a profit. I found that discarding my items fell into 3 categories: A. Donations B. resell myself or C. resell through a 3rd party. I will cover this in a future blog for those interested!
Total “Tidy Warrior” time: 3 hours
Boxes and piles of shoes
Pile of all purses and wallets to sort through
The pairs of shoes that “sparked joy’ to keep. Used Instax to polarize and keep organize to know what is what and dust free.
I organize my purses by organizing by brand and height. Again, used Instax to take a polaroid to know which purse is what while protected by the dust bags.