Switching Bags Made Easier

If you’re reading this post, you probably love bags as much as I do.  The question is, do you switch bags as often as I do?

For the most part, my bags are seasonal, meaning each season I switch out my bags.  However, within those seasonal rotations, I also have occasion bags, meaning I switch out my bags depending on the occasion.  For each season, I have one bag for work, one bag for out and about (errands and the like), and another bag for events (going out to dinner, etc.).  Yes, I have that many bags, though I am contemplating downsizing my collection.

In any event, with as many as 2-3 switches per week, it can get hairy keeping track of what items I have in what bag.  For the most part, everything moves with each bag switch.  There are two items that always stay in my work bag and don’t leave (unless it’s a seasonal work bag switch).  But everything else moves as one unit.

This “one unit,” however, consists of many smaller items.  So, for example, when switching bags, the following is moved from one bag to the other: wallet, cosmetics bag (full of essentials like chapstick, hand lotion, hair brush and hair tie, etc.), glasses case, small wallet for my store cards, an extra set of keys, earbuds, and a few minor other things.  It’s not difficult to move these things, but it is easy to forget and item or two.

Enter the purse organizer.

You may have seen them.  If you do a Google search, you will come up with many items and styles.  (Looking at all of them now, perhaps I should have done a little more research on which style to choose from.)  I recently bought one from LeSportsac, one of my favorite bag brands.

Initially, I bought this organizer thinking I might be able to keep my planner, book, and iPad a little more snug and secure within my work bag.  Upon arrival, though, I knew it would be too small for this purpose.  So I decided to keep in it the items I move from bag to bag, making it that much easier to switch.

So without further ado, this is how I’m using the purse organizer:

First, here are the specifications of the organizer.  (You can see the actual dimensions on LeSportsac’s website, linked above.)  Both the front and back have several pockets.

What I refer to as the front has two smaller pockets and two pen pockets.

The back has the two smaller pockets, plus one full-length pocket behind the two smaller ones.

At either end of the organizer is a slightly bigger pocket.

The interior has a plethora of pockets for carrying those little items.  Then, of course, there is the large main compartment for larger items.

The main compartment is big enough to hold my planner, with plenty of room to spare.

But it’s not wide enough to hold an iPad 2 in the landscape position, which is how I tote my iPad.  (This ensures that it won’t fall out of the bag or get bumped around.]

So I had to nix the idea of carrying my planner and iPad in the organizer.

Instead, I decided to put all of those items that I move from bag to bag.

Starting at the top, I have my cosmetics bag, my glasses case, my small Vera Bradley wallet that holds all of my store cards, a pen, multiple packs of gum, my extra keys (for my husbands car, my mom’s house, basically keys for other people’s doors and not ones I need on a daily basis but that I might need at any given time, hence why they aren’t left at home), my regular wallet, my earbuds, and an extra phone cord for emergency charging.

All of the pockets that this organizer has allows me to keep all of these items safe and secure and of course organized!

The earbuds and extra phone cord go on one side inside.

My extra keys go on the other.

On the back, in the full length pocket I keep a hand-made coffee cup cozy that my aunt made for me.

In both the front and back small pockets I keep packs of gum.  (It’s helpful so keep so many packs on hand at once so that I don’t have to add new ones too often.)

On the front side, I also keep a pen.

In either end pocket I keep my glasses case…

…and my VB store card wallet.

Inside is where I keep the larger items of my cosmetics case and wallet.

True, I could do away with my cosmetics case and keep all of the items that are in there in the organizer itself.  But I prefer to keep these items in a closed bag—some items aren’t suitable for male eyes and if in the event I need to take these items to the restroom with me, I can just grab the cosmetics case rather than taking the whole kit and caboodle.

Once inside a bag, the organizer keeps everything contained.

It does take up a bit of room, though I still have room for other items.

The organizer probably takes up more room than I might need if these items were separated.  However, the fact that it makes these items easy to switch from one bag to another all but makes up for it, and I find that the only additional space I need is for my planner, which as you can see, is not a problem.

When it comes time to move from one bag to the next, just grab the handles and away you go!

Et voila!

Easy peasy.

The several moves I used to have to make in order to switch bags is now done in one swift motion.  It saves on time too!  But of course, the most important bonus is that nothing is left behind.

There you have it!  Any questions, please leave them in the comments below.

*Please note: I am in no way affiliated with the LeSportsac brand.  I am simply a happy long-time customer.  All opinions are my own.

Guest Post - Filofax Sketch Bag - Review

Thank you to Frédérique for sending in this review of the Filofax Sketch bag.

I live in France, and had already purchased a few accessories for my Filofax through the French website. So, when they launched a - 70% sale on a large selections of bags a few weeks ago, I realized that I really needed a new laptop bag. After all, the one I had and used from time to time was an old leather purse which I couldn't close completely due to the bulkiness of my laptop, which barely fit in it, that I really wanted to try out a new Filofax product and, well, did I mention there was a big sale ? Couldn't hurt to browse, right ?

I hesitated a long time between the Sketch Zipped Briefcase and the Sketch Modern Briefcase, but even after intensive research, I couldn't find any real pictures, videos or anything from real users! I could only look at the different pictures on the Filofax website, and their ridiculous videos : instead of inserting paper-replicas of laptops, apples, or cellphones, they could have used real props, this would have looked much more professional, wouldn't it ? Therefore, I held back for almost two weeks...

Of course, there are only a few shops around where I live (Mulhouse, in France) with Filofaxes; most of the time, they only some binders, a few folders sometimes, but never the bags; so apart from driving insane distances, there aren't many possibilities to actually touch and look at the items before you buy.

I finally decided in favour of the Sketch Zipped Briefcase, partly because it looked more like a purse/week-end bag than strictly a business/laptop-carrying case, but mostly because the two clasps for the detachable shoulder strap of the Sketch Modern Briefcase were attached only on one side of the bag. I feared the tensions from the weight of the bag would eventually rip the fabric. I might be wrong, but I didn't want to take the chance. So, Sketch Zipped Briefcase it is ! Grey looked cool, but I really like red, most of my bags and accessories (wallet, filofax...) are red. So not much hesitation there.

And this is what came through the mail less than a week after my order : this huge package, filled with air-filled bags for protection !

To my surprise, the bag was wrapped in a black Filofax-branded protection bag ! I really like that, that gives the feel of a luxury item, like my Longchamp bag which also was wrapped neatly in its protective fabric bag, or like the leather Filofax binders that come in their sturdy black boxes, whereas my Slimline Metropol is sold with a simple and thin cardboard box/wrap.

And here is the "briefcase" itself, directly out of its bag : the French website mentioned the colour "Bordeaux Foncé", and the UK site "Maroon", but it's more like a rich "darker" red, which I really like and is a really great surprise for me, as you never know exactly what the real colour is. The "front" of the bag has a little rubber Filofax logo on the right bottom, elegant and discreet (discreet being key here, I really dislike huge prominent branding).

The fabric is "waterproof ribbed nylon" and seems to be very thick and water-resistant, but it hasn't rained so far, so I wasn't able to test it outside. Just like a "good" Filofax is supposed to remain flat once open, I like my bags to be able to stand erect, whether they are full or empty, and this one does !

The additional detail that told me I would really like this bag are the rubber feet : as it's not leather on the bottom, there's no fear in damaging it and it can be quickly and easily cleaned. The zip-handles are also rubber-covered metal, so you get a good grip when you open and close your briefcase.

Let's sum up so far : the outside is looking pretty, it seems very sturdy, but let's look at its entrails !

There's one big compartment, a laptop pocket on the back-side of the bag, and a full-length flat zipped pocket (that's quite deep too), along with functional pockets, on the front-side : two mesh pockets (one large, one small), three elasticized pen loops, five card-slots, and an ID-slot : as I said, really practical !

The laptop-pocket is separated from the main compartment by a thin padded cushion, so the laptop is protected from the content you have in the main compartment. There are two Velcro sewn on both the sides, in order to keep this pocket thin when not in use, and even when "closed", you can still add lots of documents (A4/letter size will fit perfectly). Please notice the fabric pieces on the sides of the bag : once open, the briefcase is not supposed to lay flat, there are triangular pieces of nylon that keep the content from falling out of the bag, which can be open really wide nonetheless.

Now, let's try it in real conditions. I put my laptop, battery, camera and camera-cable inside, and see how it fits : perfectly ! And there's still lots of room for documents, other computer-accessories, or anything you want/need to carry !

I tried it first for a couple of nights at the Boyfriend's, and I was able to add some clothes to the aforementioned content (granted, not two full sets of clothes, but at least an additional pants, a thin sweater and other little things) : here's the bag when full, isn't it nice ? I really like it !

99€ originally, and I purchased it for ~30€ on sale (+5€ shipping). I'm really happy for my purchase, have already tried it in real conditions; the proportions and the way it's organized is just what I needed. A great surprise, really, I didn't expect to be this enthusiast ! I doubt I would have bought it on a whim like this if it was full-price, or even 40% off. But at 70% off, that was a great bargain !

The only caveat I found is that the handles are a little bit too short for me, they don't allow me to carry this bag on my shoulder; this could be done in spring/summer/autumn with a light/very thin jacket, but with a thicker winter jacket, it's not really practical nor possible, I would say. That doesn't bother me much, as it's quite heavy once it's filled (did I mention that my laptop was more like a huge heavy brick than a state-of-the-art-super-lightweight-laptop ?). When they are full or heavy, I mostly hang my bags from the crook of my arm anyway.

Both the Zipped and the Modern Briefcases are back to their original prices on filofax.fr, but the UK website is currently having a -40% sale on these models, among others... (Enabler ? Who, me ?) !!