Clothing all laid out, organized and ready to be packed

My Top 3 Packing Tips

With the holidays coming, many of my clients are excited to visit family and get out and about a bit more – including myself!

You may find this hard to believe coming from a professional organizer, but packing causes me a lot of anxiety. I love to travel, but I don’t necessarily like to pack! To combat that anxiety, I use these three tips to make the process much easier.

Use the Formula of Three For Packing

The Formula of Three is an absolutely tried and true travel packing tip.

Here is how it works: you pack three of everything: three tops, three bottoms, three dresses, three jackets and three pairs of shoes. The important part is to choose pieces that can be combined to make several different outfits. So be sure to choose classic pieces that go together easily! You can also choose two solid colors for each set of three, and one item with a pattern.

This tip really helps to curb the urge to overpack. And knowing that you have a total of 27 outfits combination options (not including the shoes) takes the pressure off. It’s much easier to follow a formula than to try and cram in multiple outfits that only work as a single set.

Rule of Three Outfits - Organized Travel Tip
The Rule of 3 will give you 27 different outfit combinations for your trip!

Use Your Toiletry Bag Items the Evening Before

This tip has been SO helpful to me.

When you pack for your next trip, pack your toiletries THE DAY BEFORE you leave and then use them the night before and the morning of your trip. That way anything you forgot will come to mind.

This tip has saved me a number of times in the past! It also makes the morning that you leave a lot less stressful since everything is ready to go.

Packing your travel bag the night before helps you figure out that one item you missed – before you leave!

Store Your Travel Items in Your Suitcase

This tip is really something that you need to do after each trip in order to prepare for the next one. It is absolutely worth the time investment and will save you a lot of headache for your next trip.

When you come home, take the time to organize your travel things in one place. This might include your toiletry bag, neck pillow, travel-size liquid containers, packing cubes, electronics organizer and other travel items.

Clean them off, empty the bottles and place everything into your suitcase. That way, when you go to pack for your next trip, everything is all ready for you to go!

Storing everything in your suitcase means they are easy to find and aren’t cluttering up other spaces in your home like the bathroom and bedroom. Plus, if for any reason you need to pack for an emergency trip, everything is partially packed and ready to go.

It’s been a long 18 months with not much travel, and I know many of my clients are looking forward to getting back to it. If you want help packing, or getting organized for your next trip, please reach out! I would love to help.

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