Pack for a trip, broken into 6 small steps
Packing tends to happen the night before, in a rush, with the nagging feeling you forgot something. Usually you did: a charger, a toothbrush, the one thing you actually needed.
Packing goes faster when you pack by category instead of wandering the house, and when the essentials get checked at the end instead of remembered along the way.
Start here · under 2 minutes
Put the suitcase open on the bed.
Under two minutes. An open suitcase is a reminder you can't ignore.
The rest of the steps
- Step 2:
Check the weather and the plan for each day.
Write a quick line per day: "beach", "dinner out", "travel day". That decides the clothes.
- Step 3:
Lay out clothes by category, not by outfit.
Tops, bottoms, underwear, socks, sleepwear. Count: days plus one.
- Step 4:
Pack toiletries in one bag.
Toothbrush, meds, deodorant, contacts. Anything you use every morning.
- Step 5:
Gather chargers and documents into one pouch.
Phone charger, ID or passport, tickets, cards. This pouch goes in your carry-on, not the suitcase.
- Step 6:
Zip it and leave it by the door.
With your keys on top. The last-minute check is just: phone, wallet, pouch.
Why this one stalls
It feels like a five-minute job, so it never gets scheduled, until it becomes a stressful job at the worst possible time.
If you get stuck
Pack the night before the night before. Packing with a day of margin turns "I forgot X" into a quick errand instead of a problem at the airport.
What “done” looks like
A closed suitcase by the door and a documents pouch you can find without thinking.
These steps follow the same rules as the method in our task breakdown guide: the first step is physical and takes under two minutes, and every step after it is something you can see yourself doing. Got a head full of other things too? Start with a brain dump.