Cleaning up and clearing out

Part of the Shape Your Life challenge I'm doing with Chris Linnares involves getting parts of your life to where your ideal self would want them to be. That's a hard thing to describe, but essentially, however the ideal, "real" me would want my desk or closet to look is how it should be.

My first task was my handbag. As I drug it from the floor of the kitchen into my bedroom, the heft and inner chaos of it became such an obvious metaphor to my life lately: Cluttered and overwhelmed; loving and enjoying most of the stuff going into it, but constantly searching and digging to find the most important things.




I'm not a messy person — it's just not me. But somehow my purse and desk tend to get cluttered, largely because I'm working on a lot at once and not taking the time to regroup and take a step back.

Emptying my purse on my bed, I was a bit appalled by how much crap spilled out — crap that I'd been carrying around for months and weighed me down, piling onto an already heavy load. Why was I hauling so much extra around when it was completely useless?

In just five minutes time and with very minimal effort, I cleared the clutter. Not only did it lighten my load, it lifted my mood and outlook on where I'd bring that handbag next.