Happy New Year!
Happy National Organizing Month!
Sigh.
Mini-declutter? If you are like me, you have a resolution or intention to get better organized in 2019. If you are like me, you don’t have a weekend, or a day, to dive-in and do a deep declutter.
Solution: The Daily Mini-Declutter and Organize Minute (or Five).
Start with something simple and do-able: Declutter your wallet.
During the holidays my purse and wallet became crammed with shopping lists, receipts. snack wrappers, expired coupons and the business cards of long-forgotten people. This clutter in my wallet created chaos.
In frustration I pulled out my wallet and emptied it. Then I looked at the cards I had in there. I found cards that were three years old and useless. If you are like me you get new membership cards to AAA and your insurance annually. Usually I just cram the new cards on top of the old cards. Looking at them, I realized some of these cards I use infrequently or even rarely: Museum memberships and frequent shopper cards.
What I kept in the wallet: Driver’s license, AAA card, health insurance card, bank debit card, two major credit cards (one for business, one for personal expenses), and the frequent sipper card from my favorite coffee shop.
I have a separate card case in my make-up bag. It holds museum membership cards, and infrequent shopper cards. The make-up bag holds: my card case, earbuds, mini mints, tissue packet, nail file, small mirror, color swatches for shopping, and a single lipstick.
My gym pass and library card are on my keychain along with my grocery shopping card. (I wish I used my gym pass as often as my library and grocery cards.)
Then I grabbed scissors and cut up the expired and unused credit and membership cards.
My wallet is lighter, it closes more easily and I can find what I need – instantly. No fumbling around. No chaos. No frustration.
Inspired, I did another Mini-Declutter: My purse/bag. More miscellaneous clutter – gone. I just lost a pound! (or at least my purse did). That feels better.
My next mini-declutter project: decluttering a desk drawer. OK, I’ll be real, decluttering and organizing a single file folder. Doing this once-a-day will give me an organized file drawer in a month.
Baby steps get you to your goal and are often more sustainable than the big commitment event.
I hope this inspires you to do a mini-declutter of your wallet. Adapt what I have done (above) to what works for you. If you are too overwhelmed to do the kind of decluttering and organizing that Marie Kondo or Julie Morgenstern recommend, then do a series of mini-declutterings. Identify what will make your life easier, chunk it down into mini-declutter tasks and go for it. Build on your success. Keep going and you will improve your life and decrease your stress with every decluttering and organizing task you complete.
Let me know how decluttering your wallet worked for you in the comments below.
What mini-declutter project has worked for you?
Other articles on decluttering and organizing: