Earlier this year I did a cable clean out, letting go of cables that I no longer need. It was a huge improvement, but it didn’t feel easy enough for me to access what I needed.
Tagged with: container store, cords, travel
Before I left on my trip to Australia, I blogged about how I was able to pack everything in just a carry-on. I’m back from my trip and thought I’d give you an update on how that worked out.
Tagged with: australia, packing, simplicity, travel
I wanted to make sure I could navigate the trip as easily as possible, so I worked hard to pack light. The last time I bought a suitcase was about 2011, so I treated myself to a new, lighter carry-on roller bag with spinny wheels that roll smoothly.
Like many people, I keep a bunch of travel-sized toiletries assembled so I don’t have to pack a lot of them when I travel. On travel day, I add a few things I use daily. Everything fits in my toiletries bag. But it’s all pretty much a jumbled mess.
So while I was unpacking last night, I decided to declutter my toiletries bag.
Tagged with: tiny projects, travel
I’m packing for a nine-day trip to Walla Walla. This time, I’m determined not to overpack. The last two trips I took, I ended up packing way more than I wore.
Tagged with: packing, simplicity, travel
If you’ve ever planned a trip to Disney World, you know there are a lot of moving pieces. My role as a Disney Travel Planner is to take the bulk of the stress off your shoulders and organize the details (big and small) so that you can have FUN.
Tagged with: disney, disney vacation planner, julie hough, travel
Keeping your devices fully charged while traveling can be a challenge. I’m on a trip to visit family in Walla Walla, Washington, and I find that I did not pack all the right charging cables. I’ve had a good system for some years, involving a packing cube that I keep stocked with my travel cords, which are separated using labeled binder clips
Tagged with: checklists, cords, technology, travel
When I took my epic drive from St. Louis to Walla Walla, Washington, last September to help my dad celebrate his 90th birthday, I planned the heck out of it as you might imagine. I recently wrote a blog post for Meori’s blog about how I planned it.
I came across this post today and decided to repeat it. It’s got some solid information about flying with a puppy that some might find helpful now that we’re starting to fly more again.
Tagged with: dogs, pets, travel, worth repeating
When I turned in the rental car, Enterprise charged my credit card for my car insurance’s $500 deductible. I contacted my insurance company to start the claim process and the claims agent advised me to check the benefits for the card I used to pay for the rental car because some credit cards will reimburse the deductible in situations like this.
Tagged with: travel
I’m flying to the Pacific Northwest on Saturday, so this is a timely article for me. I originally wrote it five years ago (almost to the day!) and I still have the same quandary. Re-reading this post makes me want to take enjoy leisure while I fly this trip.
Tagged with: productivity, travel, worth repeating
I’m leaving for a weekend trip to attend a family wedding. As I think about packing, I thought I’d share my method for ensuring I don’t overpack. I’ve been doing this for years — decades, really. I think I invented this system. And I’m happy to share it.
Tagged with: packing, travel, worth repeating
I had to leave town suddenly over the weekend because my 87-year-old father had an acute health crisis that caused him to be flown to a hospital in Spokane, three hours from his home in Walla Walla, Washington. It resolved quickly, I’m glad to say, and I was able to arrive just in time to drive him home from the hospital and stay with him for a week to take him to his follow up appointments.
Tagged with: minimalism, packing, travel
Disney Vacation Planner Julie Hough was our local Fox affiliate last week talking about five ways to save money on a Disney trip. These simple ideas add up to an amazing $1400 savings for a family of four on a week-long Disney trip.
Tagged with: disney, disney vacation planner, julie hough, travel
I had lunch with my friend and former team member, Julie Hough of Enjoy Mouse Travel, the other day and she pulled a plastic contact lens holder out of her purse. She casually opened it, dipped her finger in and rubbed it on her lips. I immediately stopped the conversation to ask her more about what was in that contact lens case, since it obviously wasn’t holding contact lenses! Julie uses a special lip ointment and she makes it very portable (and non-messy) by filling the little compartment with ointment.
Tagged with: disney vacation planner, julie hough, repurposing, travel
I recently scheduled a one-week trip that had me in Portland, Oregon, for the wedding of dear friends, followed by five days in Walla Walla, Washington (a 4.5-hour drive from Portland) visiting my father.
Things didn’t go quite as planned. I had a marvelous time at the wedding and headed to Walla Walla on Sunday as scheduled. But I discovered on the way that my father had fallen in his condo, where he lives alone, and was unable to get up for 16 hours. That’s scary business for an 86-year-old. Fortunately, he was able to get up and get help and he was driven to the emergency room. I arrived at the ER about 30 minutes after he did.
Tagged with: family, flexibility, travel
If you’re thinking about going to Disney World, there are two words that have the power to make or break your vacation. Plan ahead. Even the most carefree and spontaneous people I know have agreed: you have to exercise those organizing and planning muscles if you wish to keep The Happiest Place on Earth from becoming The Most Stressful Place on Earth.
Tagged with: disney, disney vacation planner, julie hough, travel
I’m in the middle of a fun ten-day trip. It’s bookended by a professional conference at the beginning, a wedding at the end and five days in New York City in the middle. I flew to Pittsburgh, took a train to New York, and will drive from there to Central Pennsylvania (for the wedding) and back before flying home from New York to St. Louis.
That’s a lot of back and forth and I didn’t want to be weighed down by luggage, particularly in the train portion of the trip (you could not check bags on the train I was on).I wanted to pack everything into a carry-on sized suitcase.
Tagged with: simplicity, travel
I travel every month or two and over the years I’ve managed to make packing fairly stress free. There are five practices that I’ve adopted that have helped make packing a piece of cake.
Tagged with: packing, planning, travel, worth repeating
I’m in the midst of my annual December trip to visit family in Washington state. I wrote this post in January 2016, after circumstances required me to travel light on this trip two years ago. I realized in looking at it this morning that I didn’t think twice about packing just a carry-on-sized bag for my nine-day trip. Since I’m in the midst of Project 333 and have only about 33 items of clothing from which to choose, it was a no brainer. Traveling is a great time to experiment with getting by with fewer clothes.
Tagged with: simplicity, travel, worth repeating
Tomorrow morning I fly to Atlanta for the annual meeting of the National Association of Professional Organizers. (Woo hoo!) So it seemed like an appropriate time to repeat this post, written a couple of years ago, about using a checklist to make packing easier. I still use that checklist each time I travel and it’s worked out well for me.
Tagged with: packing, planning, travel, worth repeating
If you’ve wondered why I haven’t blogged in a week or so, I have an excellent excuse.
Allow me to introduce Bix.
He’s an eight-week-old standard poodle puppy who joined our family on December 13. Tomorrow he’ll be nine weeks old. He’s absolutely adorable, smart as a whip and well behaved (for a puppy). He’s endlessly amusing.
I just returned from an eight-day trip to visit family in Walla Walla, Washington and attend my high school reunion. I had a great time, but I’m glad to be home.
As usual, I packed too many clothes. (That’s a photo of my suitcase on this trip as I was facing down repacking it.) I was getting frustrated, so I started to ponder why I (and I assume others) do this. It’s an irritating practice because it actually makes life on the road harder. As I’ve written about it before, there are benefits to packing light:
Tagged with: packing, planning, simplicity, travel
I’m leaving early tomorrow morning for a week-long trip and need to plan and execute my packing today. Happily, I have a system that makes it easy for me. This post, which I originally wrote last year, is a handy reminder, so I thought I’d share it again.
Tagged with: packing, planning, travel, worth repeating
In early December I traveled to Washington state to visit my parents just days after I broke my wrist. I blogged then that I would have to simplify my travel taking the bare minimum number of items so that I could lift my suitcase with one hand. Since I also couldn’t fasten pants with a zipper, the number of clothing items I could take was limited anyway.
Tagged with: simplicity, travel
I’m traveling to visit my parents next week and, unfortunately, I fell and injured my wrist a couple of days ago. It’s a suspected fracture, possibly just a sprain, but I’m in a splint and a sling. Luckily it’s my left arm, so I’m getting by.
I was out of town for five days in mid-September. I’ve been back a week and I still don’t have my mojo back.
Tagged with: clean desk, email, habits, routines, self-care, task list, travel
This morning, I had a flight that departed at 5:50, which meant I needed to leave for the airport at 4:15. That meant I needed to get up at 3:15. In the morning. Actually, I probably should have either (a) arisen earlier or (b) packed absolutely everything but morning essentials the night before.
I’m leaving today for Independence, Missouri, to do research at the Midwest Genealogy Center, part of the Mid-Continent Public Library. I’ve been doing almost all of my genealogy research at home on my computer and I’ve decided it’s time to branch out and look for documents not available on the internet.
Tagged with: family history research, genealogy, organize your family history, planning, travel
I travel every month or two and over the years I’ve managed to make packing fairly stress free. There are five practices that I’ve adopted that have helped make packing a piece of cake.
I bought an iPad Air on December 26. If you’ve been reading this blog a long time, you might remember that I was an early adopter of the iPad. I bought the original version in 2010 and fell head over heels in love with it.
Tagged with: ipad, productivity, springpad, travel
I flew home from visiting to my parents on Southwest Airlines on Saturday and had a great experience, as usual. It brought to mind this post I wrote a year ago, when I was also flying from Spokane to St. Louis. I still think there’s a lot to be learned from this great airline.
Tagged with: customer service, southwest airlines, travel, worth repeating
I’ve been away from home about a week visiting family in Washington state. After a couple of half-days of travel, I’ll be home on Saturday. This blog post, which I wrote a couple of years ago at the end of the trip, reflects how I still feel about getting back into the swing of things. I’m happy to say that I didn’t leave my office in such disarray this time, but I am coming to a full week of client appointments. My routines will keep me sane!
Tagged with: 15 minutes, habits, routines, travel, worth repeating
I’m flying home now from my trip to visit my parents in Washington state. I’m flying Southwest, which is always my first-choice airline. Getting to Walla Walla can be a bit challenging and this time I flew Southwest to Spokane, rented a car and drove the three hours to Walla Walla. This morning, I was set to drive back for my return flight, which was to be at 2:40 p.m., flying via Las Vegas.
Tagged with: customer service, southwest airlines, travel
I’m leaving tomorrow for another trip to see my parents in Walla Walla. On July 25, 2011, just after I’d returned from a trip to Walla Walla, I blogged about the swell travel organizer I use to keep track of my paperwork while I travel. I’ve used it for every trip I’ve taken since (which must be at least a dozen) and the durable organizer continues to work well. I so I figured it was worth re-running my review, originally published July 25, 2011.
Tagged with: paper management, smead, travel, worth repeating
A few weeks ago, I blogged about how iPhone simplifies my life. Today I leave for Chicago for the weekend to help my friend, Sally, of Roll Over Rover Threads at a pet-industry trade show. (Check out Sally’s website for fun and sophisticated pet-related apparel and home goods!)
Tagged with: iphone, roll over rover, sally brown, travel
I’m writing this from the Denver airport, on my way from St. Louis to Portland. When I booked this trip, I had a choice of a Denver-to-Portland flight that would mean a 2.75-hour layover or with a one-hour layover. I purposely chose the longer layover so I wouldn’t stress about missing my flight if my outbound flight was delayed.
I’m leaving town tomorrow for more than a week and I’m trying not to let myself get caught up in pre-trip hysteria. Today was back-to-back appointments and I still have a number of things I have to do, like pack (and, before that, figure out what I’m going to pack).
Up until a few years ago, traveling with jewelry wasn’t much of an issue for me. I had a few pairs of earrings and a tiny (2” by 3”) little oriental cloth zipper case I put them in when I traveled. Then I met Geralin Thomas who, among her many talents, is a wardrobe consultant. She’s helped me up my game in terms of clothing and especially in terms of accessories.
Tagged with: clos-ette too, geralin thomas, giveaway, jewelry, organizing products, travel
I’m a huge believer in the value of routines. They keep my life running smoothly. But right now, my routines are all messed up. I was away for a week, attending the ICD conference. Then I was home for four days and too busy to focus on my surroundings. Then I left home for a lovely, relaxing weekend in Nashville with friends.
Tagged with: 15 minutes, aby garvey, habits, routines, travel
I went on a week-long trip to visit my parents in mid-July. It involved air travel, car rental, and hotel stay (my parents live in a small condo, so I don’t stay with them).
Tagged with: paper management, smead, travel
I’ve been doing my family’s taxes on TurboTax now for four years. I worked on them almost to the point of completion last weekend (let’s hear it for refunds!) and it went remarkably smoothly.
Tagged with: apps, milebug, taxes, technology, travel
I’m all for saving money. But last week I learned a valuable lesson about how saving money at the expense of time isn’t always such a great idea.
Tagged with: mistakes, money, priorities, travel
I’m leaving for a weekend trip to attend a family wedding. As I think about packing, I thought I’d share my method for ensuring I don’t overpack.
I’ve been doing this for years — decades, really. I think I invented this system. And I’m happy to share it.
I leave in an hour or so to fly to Los Angeles to attend the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization’s annual conference I love this conference and have gone every year since I became an organizer.
I’ve been home from Australia for six days now. Apart from the very first night home, when I slept long and hard after 24 consecutive hours of travel, I haven’t been sleeping properly. I’m a good sleeper (my mom’s narcoleptic…it’s in my genes) but I’ve experienced what it must be like to be an insomniac. Most nights, I’ve just not been getting sleepy at bedtime.
Tagged with: margaret lukens, productivity, routines, travel, wendy davie
I’m going to write a blog post about the wonderful AAPO conference, but I’m tired today, so I’ll just share some photos. I’m still loving Australia!
My brother, Larry, his daughter, Miranda and I took a trip a couple hours up the coast to the Sunshine Coast where we paid a visit to Larry’s sister- and brother-in-law in Caloundra. We had such a lovely time.
I’m here to tell you that Qantas rocks. My flight across the ocean was really quite easy. It was an overnight flight that lasted 14 hours (we left LA at 10:30 p.m. Thursday and arrived in Sydney at 6:30 a.m. Saturday, crossing the international date line). The captain cheerfully told us that the duration of our flight was “just over half a day.”
I’m kind of nerdily excited because I’m writing (and will be posting) this blog post while on an airplane. In the air. My American Airlines flight to Los Angeles has WiFi. I wish I could say it was free, but they did give us a coupon for 25 percent off, so it’s only $6 to use WiFi for the duration of the flight.
I am so excited. Three weeks from today I fly to Brisbane, Australia. While I’m there, I’ll be attending the Australasian Association of Professional Organisers annual conference. I’m one of the presenters at the two-day conference. I’ll be speaking about using the internet to work with clients all over the world.
I’ve been in the Pacific Northwest visiting my parents for the last week or so. I took along my computer, fully expecting to do a little blogging, but got caught up in the combination of family activities and not really thinking about work, so there’s been pretty much radio silence from me.
Tagged with: family, travel, walla walla
Peter Shankman, the innovator of the service Help a Reporter Out which matches reporters who need sources with sources who need publicity, logs something like 400,000 miles a year. He recently wrote a blog post with wonderfully detailed tips on the tricks and gadgets he uses to make business travel a little easier.
Tagged with: peter shankman, travel
Sometimes I feel like a broken record when I write here (or in my newsletter) about the importance of routines. It’s just that I’m reminded very frequently about how much of an impact they can have on order, productivity and overall peace of mind.
Tagged with: don't break the chain, joe's goals, jott, productivity, routines, travel
I’m home from my latest trip. And I’m here to stay for awhile! It’s nice to be back sleeping in my own bed, though I’m feeling a little foggy. I blame Pip, my standard poodle, who had me up in the night several times last night needing to go out.
Yesterday, I wrote a long (and trust me, really well written) blog post about my hometown of Walla Walla, Washington, where I am right now visiting family. It went on about the Norman Rockwellian nature of this town, which often seems like the land that time forgot.
Tagged with: sally brown, travel, walla walla
I leave this morning for Chicago, where I’m going to staff my friend Sally’s booth at the H.H. Backer Christmas Trade Show. Sally is the creative and business genius behind Roll Over Rover, a company that sells design-conscious apparel for dog lovers. Sally’s illustrations are whimsical and sophisticated. I’m a proud booster.
Tagged with: pets, roll over rover, sally brown, travel
I’m typing this from the Las Vegas airport en route home to St. Louis. (Man, do I hate the Las Vegas airport…it’s hard to find any peace with all the slot machines and so forth. Plus it doesn’t appear you can even purchase a wifi connection.) Anyway, I just heard this announcement, “Attention, Marge Simpson [I changed the name], please return to security. You picked up the wrong computer.” Gulp. They made that announcement twice, then made another one asking her to pick up a white courtesy phone and call the operator.
Tagged with: travel
I’m leaving today on a 7:30 a.m. flight to Portland, Oregon, where I’ll attend the annual educational symposium of the Garden Writers Association. I’ve been going to these conferences every year since 1989 (I think I’ve missed three in 20 years) and even though I no longer make my living by writing and have never been a gardener, I continue to go. (I started attending when I worked in PR at the Missouri Botanical Garden.)
Tagged with: garden writers association, travel
Over at Unclutterer today, professional organizer Monica Ricci has written a guest column about travelling light. She offers some great tips on packing so that you don’t have to check a bag and incur extra charges.
Tagged with: bed bath and beyond, monica ricci, packing, travel, unclutterer
Whether you’re staying at home or traveling on this very busy weekend for travel, I hope you have fun and stay safe.
Tagged with: gas prices, travel
American Airlines has announced it will start charging $15 for the first bag a passenger checks. I remember being shocked when airlines starting charging for bag number two. Now you can’t check any bags free of charge (on American, at least). Passengers will start bringing even more carry-on luggage on board. That’s going to make flying an even bigger hassle. Sigh.
I’m catching a 6:25 a.m. flight to Baltimore this morning to attend the HH Backer 20th Annual Pet Industry Spring Trade Show and Educational Conference . It’s funny: for ten years I was a pet writer and always wanted to attend this show. But I never found a magazine to send me and didn’t have an excuse to go.
Tagged with: pets, roll over rover, sally brown, travel
I’m flying home from Hawaii late this afternoon. It’s an overnight flight and I arrive in St. Louis at 8 in the morning. That’s an eleven hour journey, not counting the time I spend waiting for my flight at the Honolulu airport.
Tagged with: knitting, mark forster, packing, travel
I’m the luckiest organizer. I worked with a wonderful client here in St. Louis for eighteen months. Last month she moved to Hawaii. Last week, her family’s stuff, which was shipped by boat, arrived. This week, I’m going there to help her set up household. I leave early (and I mean early) tomorrow morning.
Tagged with: travel
I leave today for Reno, Nevada, to attend the national conference of my professional organization, the National Association of Professional Organizers. This is my third national NAPO conference in as many years and I’m very excited.
Tagged with: napo, oprah, peter walsh, travel
One of the wonderful things about being a knitter is that when you’re away from home you can almost always find a comfortable place to hang out.
Tagged with: socks, travel, yarn, yarn stores