True Confessions Wednesday: Packing and Procrastinating

True Confession #43: I am a last minute packer.

It makes no difference how much lead time I have. It makes little difference how busy I am (although that is a factor). When it comes to packing, I am always putting things together the night before we leave.

And the day of departure.

International trips notwithstanding, my clothes don't go in my suitcase until the last possible minute. I start mental preparations ahead of time, and do lots of laundry basket packing (clean clothes come upstairs and the ones I'm thinking of taking along go into a laundry basket in my bedroom) but rarely do things make it into a suitcase sooner than the night before.

Procrastination is definitely a factor, as is experience, but the most important factor that lets me get away with this is the fact that I have a process.

• Pre-Pack. With the exception of make-up and medicine, all of my toiletries are always packed. And long before I put anything in a suitcase, I'm making lists and tossing odds and ends into bags (and that laundry basket) so I don't forget to pack them.
• Pack as I go/stash it when I think of it. I always pack make-up and medicine the day I leave, immediately after I use it. That way, I'm less likely to forget something I need. At times  (like now) when I'm busy, I pull contenders for the suitcase out as I get dressed. One sweater to put on, another to pack. 
• Develop a routine. For me, it's laying everything out on a flat surface where I can see it, which makes it much easier for me to figure out what I have and what's missing. (I also make lists). To my husband, my plan looks like chaos, but it works for me, so I stand by it. Likewise, your plan doesn't have to make sense to anybody else; it just has to work for you.

I certainly don't recommend waiting until the last minute to get everything together. But, if you find yourself in that situation, as I so often do, getting it together successfully is possible.

Especially if you have a process.