If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute.
That’s my philosophy for many things in life. I’m a perpetual procrastinator. I pulled more than the average number of all-nighters in college. But I graduated, so it worked, right?
I often use this philosophy for packing, too. In fact, I’m using it today. I have to catch a flight to Alabama in a few hours, and I haven’t packed jack. Granted, most of my packing involves paperwork to take care of my mom’s affairs rather than clothing (I keep some clothes down there), but I still need to take a few articles. Mainly because of the temperature difference - it’s about 60F in Alabama right now. It’s a balmy 20F in DC at the moment, and it isn’t even snowing. There’s just no excuse for that. Hear me, snow gods?
If I’m going on a longer trip to someplace far, far away, then I’m normally a little more proactive in my packing approach. It can be hard to find some every day items in a foreign country. I highly doubt I could find socks to fit my mammoth feet in, say, Vietnam. But for a quick trip to Alabama? Here’s what I do:
A few days ahead of time:
- Make pile of paperwork, mail, music, etc., that needs to go with me on the kitchen counter.
- Make mental note of other random items that I will later forget about.
Day of flight:
- Open closet. Stare into closet for 20 minutes.
- Pull out 3 outfits plus running shorts and shoes.
- Remember that I don’t need anything nice since I’ll be in sweats 80% of the time.
- Put 2 outfits back in the closet.
- Contemplate remaining outfit for another 10 minutes.
- Decide that it doesn’t matter, I’m probably not going to wear said outfit anyway.
- Stuff everything in the suitcase.
- Go to airport, remember all the things I forgot. Decide I didn’t really need them anyway.
I could easily eliminate steps 1-6 the day of if I were a dude. In that case, I would just sleepily stuff an extra t-shirt and pair of jeans into a backpack and consider it done. Not that I can’t do that as a girl, but I’m too vain to go that route. So I still wait until the last minute. But, ok - I'll admit it, it takes me a hair longer than a minute.
And with that, I’m going to stop writing and go stare into my closet. Happy Friday!
I packed for a 9 month deployment to Bosnia in an hour. Does that count? I did travel, but I was neither traveler nor tourist (unless you count patrols as traveling).
ReplyDeleteWOAH. Sir, you have just won the packing games!
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