How many times have you searched frantically through your handbag to find your cell phone, while that very important call was coming in, only to have it stop ringing before it was found? Worse yet, how about the number of times you literally emptied your bag and swore it was not in there, then spent the next two hours combing your house to find your cell. Finally, you called it – and it rang, audibly, from inside your purse! If this describes any situation you have found yourself in, you desperately need to organize your handbag better.

Of course, some handbags come manufactured with organizers already built in. There are pockets for your cell phone, a zippered pouch that most people keep loose items in such as keys, and even a ring or two that hangs from the outside from which you could loop your keys or anything you may need that has a strap. If you are one of the few women who use these pockets for the purposes for which they were intended, good for you! Most of us, however, throw everything willy-nilly into the open space that is our purse and, for better or worse, there it sits collecting other items on top of it until it is all one big jumbled mess for us to sort through later.

Now that we have painted a bleak picture of the inside of your handbag, what suggestions can be offered to help us fix this mess? For starters, set aside a block of time where you can truly clean out and de-clutter your handbag. If you do this, you will likely find old coupons, pens that no longer work, and cosmetics that have either expired or, worse yet, lost their caps and are now making unwanted marks all along the inside of your nicely lined bag. Throw all of these items away and start anew! Once you sort out what you wish to keep and what can be removed as trash, you can then begin to actually organize.

Generally, your handbag will have a divider or two. If it does not, it will have one main compartment and then a small, zippered compartment on one side of the inside lining. This type of handbag can benefit from a smaller inside bag, like a transfer bag, which fits beautifully inside the ‘outer shell’ that is your lovely handbag and can be used to carry all of your personal belongings from one bag to the other. The beauty of this type of bag is that it does the organizing for you, and has ready-made pockets for things like your phone and checkbook. There may even be a place for your cosmetics here. If not, you can use a transfer bag for everything else, and put your cosmetics in the zippered compartment that already exists in the lining of your handbag.

If your bag has at least one, and perhaps two, dividers, you can use these to separate the contents of your handbag into “personal items” and “business items”. For example, one half of your bag would contain your cell phone, business cards, calendar if you carry one, a pen or two, and your checkbook, while the other side would contain cosmetics, aspirin, and perhaps a snack or other small personal item. If you are fortunate enough to have two dividers in your handbag, you can sort your items even further and organize according to personal items, business items, and cosmetics, keeping any cosmetics that could leak, become opened, or spill into a separate section. Perhaps you could find a plastic or vinyl bag small enough to contain your cosmetics alone and fit this into the section of your bag designated for them. Along with makeup, you can keep contact lens cases, nasal spray, eye drops, or anything of the sort that you may need that contains liquid that could ruin the inside of your handbag.

Organization is important in every facet of life, even your handbag. There is no sense having a beautiful handbag if you are going to rummage through it publicly every time you open it in an effort to find what you are looking for. Becoming organized will free up your time in the long run, and you will appear more put-together. Once you appear more put-together, you will feel less frenzied and you will feel more put together! Set aside the time once every couple of weeks to make sure your handbag is still clutter-free and everything is in its designated compartment. It will be worth your while and the minimal time spent doing so.

If you have a transfer bag to use, however, this is best as you can simply carry its contents from one bag to another and not have to worry about re-organizing your bag each week.