Hate Packing? These 5 Easy Tips Will Save You from All That Stress

We love to travel and go on staycations and mini vacations but I hate packing our luggage and bags. I don't trust my husband to do the packing for my son and for the rest of our stuff. I just tell him to pack his things. So, I pack for myself, my son and all the other extras which can be exhausting and frustrating. Last Sunday, I was thinking about how I can make the process less painful. I remembered what Masterchef Gary Mehigan said to one of the contestants and that is to do one thing at a time. She was supposed to prep shrimps and Gary told her to remove the shells first on all the 5 pounds(??) or more shrimps and then devein them and then final prep them.

I used to just throw everything in the open suitcase and start folding and packing right in the suitcase. This resulted to a chaotic room and non-existent floor space. I was also super stressed halfway through the process. Add to that, my son keeps 'riding' the suitcase. But, this time, I had a plan and I'm going to share it with you.

Make a list

Everything should start with a list. You might think that you know everything you need to pack but if you have kids, think again. Just make a list. I made a list and I still forgot a few things. Well that's because I forgot to put them on the list. 

Get all clothes by category

In my list, my categories were:

• day clothes x (number of clothes or combinations such as 3 shorts and shirts)
• night clothes
• going out clothes
• underwear
• socks 
• shoes and slippers

These were just for the clothes. I started getting clothes by category and piling them on the bed. 

Remove the hangers

After getting all the clothes, I proceeded to removing the hangers and then piling the hangers on one side of the bed. After that, I returned the hangers to their proper place. 

Start folding and packing

I folded the clothes by category again and put them in my packing cell. This way, when I need a set of clothes, I can pull them out easily because I know that they are on the same level, left and right. 

I ended up with two packing cells for all my clothes. There are other ways of packing clothes such as rolling them or folding one big pile but I found that the packing cell method works best for us. I can easily see which packing cell contains what. They are also space savers. I can pack a few of these in our luggage. Also, when I'm too lazy (such as when we are going home), I can just dump everything in the packing cell and the suitcase won't look messy.  

Color Code the Cells

I have pink, my son has orange and my husband has blue. This way, we can easily see where our clothes are. 

I did the same process for my son's clothes. After everything was packed in the packing cells, I opened the suitcase and put everything inside. It was the easiest, fastest and stress-free packing I have ever done! It used to take at least an hour for me to pack our stuff but this time, I think it only took me 30 minutes for both our clothes and some extras. 

If you want to save these tips for later, feel free to Pin the image below in your Pinterest board.