Holiday Organization Challenge : Day 3

Foreign. Thank you for joining me. I'm so glad that we're making it through the challenge. Right. We're on day three, and today is all about traveling with ease and traveling with confidence. So I have some great content for you today, and I have a awesome handout that I'll give to you or a bonus download that you can download. It's a PDF. It's really good. So I think you're going to like it. So let's jump in and let's get started. So today's day three, and again, it's all about traveling with these, getting packed and making sure that you're ready to travel. And I think I've got some good tips for you. So the reason why I wanted to have this as one of the days of the challenge is because it can be very stressful traveling. Whether you're traveling on your own, you're traveling with touch with kids, no matter what, if you're traveling internationally or if you're just getting in doing a road trip for a few hours away, it can be really stressful. But if there's some pre planning that you do and some prep work, there's no doubt that it will be a lot smoother. And the way that I look at it is, yes, it reduces the stress, doesn't make travel flawless. And you're not going to have any issues. Of course not. But I think the more planning you can do up front, it just makes it so much easier to deal with the other situations that may pop up while you're traveling because everything else seems to be organized. So let's focus on, on how you can get organized for any upcoming travel that you have. And again, it applies whether you're getting in the car and you got a road trip or you're traveling within, you know, your country or you're traveling international. So when I asked in the Facebook group, you know, what is your biggest challenge? Most folks said packing and then just staying organized while you're. While you're traveling. So that's perfect because that aligns with exactly what we're going to talk about today. Some people said planning, and then Alicia added, you know, making sure that the house is nice and tidy to come home to. And that is a great thing to mention because I didn't have that as part of my presentation. But there's nothing like coming home to a clean home. So that you've got, you know, no dishes in the sink, you don't have a bunch of laundry. Right. You're going to be coming home with A bunch of laundry, but you have clean bedding, clean sheets to come home to. You've got clean towels. So you can take a shower and rest and take on the challenge of all of your intern laundry later in a day or two. But it is great that if you can pre plan and put it as part of your schedule to make sure and get some of those key things done before you leave for your trip, you'll be really thankful when you, when you get back, when you're tired and you just want to be able to relax and get cleaned up. So that's a great thing to do. So today I have a travel guide for you. It's a PDF that I put together and I'm hoping you'll find it really helpful. Inside it's got a packing chest, checklists, tips for traveling with kids and pets, how to organize your travel documents. And I know nobody said they really have an issue on that, so I'll go light on that one. But I do have a couple of things that I will mention just in case you're traveling internationally. And we'll spend most of the time talking about packing and any travel accessories that are really helpful because over the years I've gathered, I've gathered things that really help me with staying organized while I travel. So I'll definitely share that with you. I will put the link, let me just grab this link real quick and put it in the chat. And there we go. I just put that in the chat and I'll also put it in the, the description for the replay so that you have that link. Okay. And then I'm going to give you an idea what's in that. So the first thing that I put in that PDF is a packing list and it has all of the things that I think you would, plus a sum. So you pick and choose. It depends on what type of trip you're going. Are you going on a winter trip, a summer trip? Are you going for a day or two? Are you going for a couple weeks? Right. So this may be overkill for some trips. It may be right on the money for other trips. So it's got all of your basic like clothing necessities, right. All the way to, you know, jackets if you need it because it's going to be cool to swimwear or in cover ups if it's going to be like a beach trip. Right. Also all the toiletry things that you want to consider for packing all the way to, you know, lip balm and sunscreen because obviously the toothbrush, the down floss those are all obvious things. But if you can print this and actually check things off, it'll help make sure you don't even forget the obvious things. So that's the first one. And the second part of the checklist has the things like your electronics, like remembering all your chargers, your phone, your. If you're traveling internationally, make sure you have the adapters that you need to be able to plug your devices in and a voltage converter. If you're going to try to use a flat iron or like a shark. What is it, what is the thing called that I have. But any, any hair dryer or anything like that, you need to make sure that you have a voltage converter. So do your research ahead of time and make sure you have that kind of stuff because you do not want to fry your devices while you're out traveling. I talked on the checklist is also have like things that kind of go under the topic of travel documents. It's really good to make sure you don't forget things and other is just, you know, maybe a backpack, your umbrella, a reusable water bottle. I love to travel with my reusable water bottle and I never want to forget it. And I think our last trip, my husband forgot his and he was so bummed. So anyhow, it's a great checklist. Print it out and have it. There's also space for you to add a few other things that maybe are specific to you that you don't want to forget. So that's in the PDF. And then I won't go into too much detail on this in this particular session, but you know, just traveling with kids and what to consider. You know, traveling with kids is a lot of fun, but it can be really tiring. I know when we traveled with our kids, we would take them to Disneyland and I always said we needed a vacation from our vacation we got home because we would just be go, go, go, go, go, moving from one thing to another. And you know, the kids get tired, they get hungry, they get cold, all of these things. And it's just really good to make sure that you're prepared and you have all the essentials that you need. You consider calling ahead to the hotel to see if they have things that you may need, like a crib or a highchair or anything like that. And making sure that you're maybe if you don't want to take a car seat, making sure the, the rental car company has one that you can get along with your car, all that good stuff. So that's included in the PDF as well. And then traveling with pets, right? So you may or may not travel with your pets, but a lot of people do. Whether you're getting in the car or you're jumping on a plane, it's really good to just make sure you're mentally going through this list and check with this PDF because you need to make sure your, your, your pets have like, we're going to be on a trip. I have to make sure that my dogs have their rabies and bordetella done before we can board them. Right. At Puppy. Their Puppy Spa. That's what we call it. They love going to there. They, they will go and play with all the dogs and they absolutely love it. So it's definitely something they enjoy. But I have to make sure they have their. All of their shots are up to date. Make sure that when you're traveling you understand like hotel policies. Make sure you have up to date. Your, your microchip and all of that is all up date. And you know how to, you know, check in on that and definitely carry a photo with you. You should have one probably on your phone, so that shouldn't be a problem. And I think the rest of it is all obvious. The only other thing I will say about pets is that it's good to do small trips before you do a big trip with your dog. Some dogs get car sick, some dogs get very anxious. So doing small trips and kind of test runs before you do a long trip is really important for your pets and keeping anxiety down. It probably applies to your kids too. So anyhow, you can read up on all the other details that I put in the PDF on traveling with pets. And then I know that you guys said that you didn't really have any concerns about getting your travel documents organized, but there's one thing, there's a couple things I'll note here. I went to India in my past career. I was in it, in IT leadership. And I went to India and I got into the country. It was easy. I got. We worked for a week and then I went to leave and I ran into a huge issue. I ran into an issue. I went to. There was a driver that took me to the airport and thankfully he stayed with me because I got in line and they literally took me and escorted me outside of the airport because I did not have a printed copy of my itinerary. They didn't care if I had it online. I needed to have a printed copy. I had no idea. I've traveled internationally, never had an issue with that. But that particular country, they were expecting a printed copy of my entire trip itinerary. Where. Where did I come from? Where am I going? Where's my next stop? So I highly suggest if you are traveling outside of the comp. Out of the country, you always have a printed copy of all of your travel itinerary, copy of your. Your important documents, including your license and your passport. And I'll tell you why in a second, but just make sure you have both a physical copy and an electronic copy of all of your important information. I list all the things that you. The second thing is I was in Ireland with a friend, and we're sitting at a coffee shop, and she put her purse on the back of her chair and somebody took it, right? We didn't even notice, but somebody walked by, grabbed it. We went to leave, and her purse was gone. In her purse was her be, her passport, all her money, all of her information. So it was. Oh, okay, one second. I just got to. I just need to mute if that's one or if that's two. Okay, there. Sorry, guys. I had to meet some money, so. Okay. So we were at a coffee shop in Ireland. My friend's purse got taken. It had her. Her visa in there. It had her. Her passport. It had all her money. It had everything. Everything, including her phone was in there, right. So we went to the U.S. embassy and they said, do you have printed copies of your passport? Because at least that would help and they could approve her maybe to travel with. Didn't have any of that. And they said you should always have a printed copy with you. So anyhow, I know it's something extra to keep secure and also, you know, keep with you, but it's really important that you consider having both electronic and printed copies. I'm trying to think what else. I think the other thing is just make sure you have your travel apps. If you, you know, make sure you download the app for your airline, it's great to know if your flight's been delayed. It'll give you updated text. So that's all good stuff. And let you read the rest of the doc itself. Let's see. Okay, so this is where I really wanted to spend some time. And I will actually, I want to make sure. One second here. I think you guys. Okay, there we go. So I want to talk about different things to consider when packing and when you're traveling, because I love staying organized when I travel. So I want to give you some hints on what I do and like, what works really well. So the first thing I'll talk about, and I don't know if you guys, I'm sure you're probably familiar with them, but we have packing cubes. We use them. I started using them a few years ago and I fell in love with them. And there's a couple reasons why. The first reason is I love to have my things organized. And for example, if I have, say I'm going to work out and I'll have my leggings, I'll have my top, I'll have my sports bra and my socks, right? I'll take each one each those, I'll wrap them up together and I'll put them their own packing cube. And what that does is it just keeps everything together and keeps it organized. I'm not having to go through a big suitcase full of clothes. I just get the one, the one travel, the one packing cube that has my workout stuff in it. Do the same thing for my bras and my socks. I know where they are, I know where my shirts are. I generally don't put my pants in a packing queue. And I'm trying to open this while I'm talking here. So. So basically what it is is you just have different size cubes. They're called cubes, but they're. Sometimes they're cubes. These actually aren't cubes or more like rectangles. But anyhow, I have like a big one, this one, I have a small one and then it also comes with a laundry bag. And I love this because I love to stay organized. So like I said, I designate each cube for different things. It makes, when I get to my destination, it makes it easy to unpack. It helps keep me organized while I'm there. Now, the bonus thing is, as you guys know, it's gotten very expensive to take luggage with you on flights. So what I, what we've done is we've bought everybody their own set. So mine is pink. They didn't have purple. But like my daughter's is like a mint cream and my husband has a navy blue. So what we can do is we can all pack in our packing cubes and throw all these cubes into a larger suitcase, pay for one fee. And we have everybody stuff when we get to our destination, everybody can easily grab all of their items because they're on the packing cubes and they're all sorted by color. So it's really nice. There's an upfront expense. They're not super expensive. You can get them on Amazon and I'll provide links for You. But you can pet if you pack with these and you buy them, you reuse them, you can wash them, and you don't have to keep every time you travel paying for all these expense expensive additional baggage like you could even have. Maybe instead of having four suitcases, you know, maybe the two parents share one suitcase and the two kids share a suitcase. Right? So anyhow, you can save money and it keeps you organized. You can easily take all of these out, throw them into a drawer. The other thing that I've done is I've also hung them up. If there isn't drawer space, I've hung them up a a on a hanger like this. And they're easy, easy to find all the different things as I look inside the closet. So I love packing cubes. So those are awesome. The other thing that I really like to use, and you don't have to use this, you can just use grocery bags, is I love to put shoes in bags. I cannot stand putting shoes inside with my clean clothes or even with my packing cubes. So. So being able to put your shoes in a little thing like this again that you can, you can easily wash, it's so nice. Again, these are inexpensive. The other thing that I've done in the past, you don't have to have these kind of things is I've just used grocery bags. So if you have extra grocery bags, just throw your shoes in there. That way you can put it in your suitcase or your carry on and they're not getting dirty. Especially. I don't know about you, but we do a lot of hiking. We have hiking boots. They get dirty. You don't want that on your clothes or in your suitcase getting things dirty. So I love to use some sort of bag for shoes. One of the questions that I got from one of the participants is, you know, how to be a little bit more elegant when it comes to like the shampoo and conditioner and soap for our showers. And hey, you guys, just ask any questions along the way if you want, by the way, I can really geek out on this stuff. I love it. So one of the things that I do is I have these silicone bottles. I've had this for two years. I use them actually every day. So here's why I use them every day. They are my travel bottles, but they're also my gym bottles. So I have one for shampoo, one for conditioner, and one for my soap. But I love them. There's, like I said, they're silicone, but they lock and you don't have any mess inside your. Your bag. So it's a really nice. You can take the lid, you can squeeze the air out. But look at how nice and big the that the inside top is. It makes filling these so easy. It's easy to get the stuff in there. You screw the lid on, you can squeeze out the air if you want, but you can close it up, you lock it, and it doesn't leak. I've literally had the same exact set. I refill them all the time. I refill them every week because I use them when I go to the gym, and then when I want to travel, they're ready to go. I used to label them, but I know which color is which, so that's easy for me. Because sometimes you can get mystery bott if your shampoo and your soap are the same color. You can't tell. But what I've done in the past is I've used a sharpie and put like S for shampoo, C for conditioner. And then I usually know what the third one is. My soap, my body wash. Or you can actually put a label on here if you want, but I don't find it necessary because I know what color is which. But it's really handy. And the other thing this is goes back to the question is that I was asked, you know, how do you. How do you travel with all this stuff? And then when you get to your destination, if you've got four people in a hotel room, let's say two parents and two kids or just four adults, how do you not keep everything from being a disaster? And I know traveling with kids, they'll open their suitcase and it absolutely looks like a bomb went off. Like there's stuff everywhere. It always happens. And same thing with the. The bathroom counter. It's. Everything is just all over the place. So what I love to do is I travel with a mesh bag bag. And inside this mesh bag, I keep everything. I have my bottles. This is also what I take to the gym, right? Super easy, super inexpensive. I've had the same one for a couple years. I also keep my gym shoe or my shower shoes in here. But I like to travel with this bag because when I go in and out of the bathroom, I just put everything in here. You can leave this, you know, in the bathroom or under the sink, but all your stuff is all together. I absolutely love that. So having something, repurposing some bag that you have at home, or even a grocery bag, put everybody's name on a. With a sharpie on the Outside of a grocery bag, at least. So keep everybody kind of contained to a bag. That's, like, one of the best things I can suggest. And again, these silicone tubes, if you can find there on Amazon, I can give you a link. But they come in, you know, 4 ounces, 3.4 ounces, so they're. You can use them on airlines. Again, they don't leak. They're awesome. So. So I love those. And along the lines of keeping the bathroom organized, I travel with this bag for my makeup and all of my. My toiletries, like my. My moisturizer and things like that. So this bag, it's a super inexpensive bag. I got it from Amazon. It was like, $10. And inside it, it has. Has room and it has, like, all these little pouches. You can put little things in there so they can stay organized. Like, here's my mascara. Here's my lash brush. Here's, like, all my palettes. I have those in the middle. I have my eye cream. I have all sorts of stuff in here. Here's my moisturizer. That goes in here. So everything sits in here. Or it can go in the little pocket so it stays organized. And then I also carry in this bag, I've got all my brushes inside a little silicone brush container. So that way it keeps my brushes protected. And I have like six or seven brushes in here. It's so nice. And it stays close. It has a magnet closed, that goes in here, right? And then if you have, like a blend, a little blender guide, I have one of those things that goes in here. If it's wet or anything, it can still breathe. So it's nice. It goes in here. So everything is in here. Nice and easy to access as I'm getting ready. And then when I'm done, I just close it up and it goes right in my back. Whether it goes in my backpack, maybe I store it on the shelf in the. In the vanity where I'm staying. It's out of the way. It's not all over the counter. So this is another way to stay organized. You can use, again, a grocery bag you can repurpose, even I've used in the past, like, little bags. Like if you go to the store, like maybe a makeup store, you get a small bag with a little handle. I've use those. I love this one. This one's super easy, soft. It closes up. Everything's contained in here, and I love it. So I hope that helps answer your question on how to keep things organized. Another question that I got I wasn't going to talk about it today, but somebody was saying that they go on trips with their kids and they want to keep like sunglasses organized. I actually have a sunglass organizer. It's a little extra etc, but we have each person has one pair and we just take them, put them in here, they just slide in here and then you just close it up and got all your sunglasses for your entire family. You don't have to worry about whether somebody's forgetting it or they're getting broken in someone's backpack. Everything is in here. So we get to your destination. You're not having to run to the store to go replace somebody's sunglasses, glasses because you need them. So that's another thing that's kind of fun. As far as like electronics. I love to keep my electronics organized. I you can use any sort of small bag. You can put like memory cards, you can put chargers, you can put cables, everything in here. And I like to use this and I put this in my backpack and I just drop it in there and it has a handle that's easy to pull out. So. So another way to stay organized with all of your electronics and keeping them all together. So I love that. I am watching to see if you guys have any questions. I also have, I carry with me always in my backpack a charger. So love this. If you have an iPhone and you haven't seen one of these, these are so fun. They're like $20. But it's a charger and it has the built in cable so you don't even have to carry a separate cable. And let me see, where's my phone? Oh, there's my phone. So all you do is you plug it in and you have it so easy. You can just put it in your purse or your pocket and it's so flat and it'll fully charge your phone off of this. So I love that because it's so important that when you're traveling these days that you have access to things on your phone, right. Even nowadays when you want to even just order from a restaurant, you need to have a phone. So it's good. You're taking lots of pictures, lots of videos. It's great to have a charger. I also have another charger as I'm a YouTuber. I have a lot of camera equipment so I carry a larger charger. This will actually charge like three phones. It's heavier though and it has USB. You can plug any USB, different types of USBs into this one. This one's bigger. It's a little bit more expensive, but it works really well. But it's heavier. This if you just have need to charge a phone or your kids need it $20. And this thing is fantastic. I love this because you don't have to fuss with having a spare cable accessible and it's so, so slim. So that's another thing I love to do to stay organized while I'm traveling. I'm trying to think what else I have. I like to travel with a full size bag. So if I'm going somewhere and I'm going to be bringing home things, I. This is a full size bag. If I was to undo it, which I can I throw this in my backpack. But it is literally a full size bag with handles and everything and it'll even just slide onto my, my suitcase handle like this. So if you're kind of expecting to get a lot of souvenirs, you want to have an extra carry on. I love this. I always bring this. It folds up nice and small and I always have it on hand. So that's. We're not stressed out about trying to hit a weight limit or anything like that. We can just easily throw things into a carry on bag, bag. Trying to think what else is there? There's just so many things. Do you guys have any questions? Why don't you tell me about any questions you have related to traveling and planning and packing and staying organized? I think I answered the couple questions that I already had. I know that was a lot. I really can geek out on this. But I love staying organized because it just takes, it takes all the stress out of it. People are always losing things or can't find things in their suitcases because they blow up. And I just find that I generally don't have that issue on the screen. There's this, that pink bag. If you guys can see that. Oh, did I not hit record? Please tell me I hit record. Oh good. I did record the, the, the, the pink bag that I have on there. That is such a fun bag. It's like an overnight bag and, and it, it unzips and it's actually a garment bag on the inside and then it zips up and you could put so many things inside. So like if you're just going for a weekend, you know, trip and you just want to jump on the plane or jump in your car, this so, so fun. I don't use that for long trips. But like if I'm flying to San Diego for the weekend, it's perfect because my clothes don't get wrinkled. I'm going to throw everything in there. And I'm super organized and I'm not having to worry about. About, you know, trying to find an iron, spending time trying to get wrinkles out of my clothes because I've got this built in. It literally is inside the bag. I should have brought it to show you, but it's so fun. So I think that there's so many options out there to help you stay organized and you don't have to spend a lot of money. And like I said, you can put your shoes in a grocery bag. You can take an extra bag for dirty clothes. You know, just bring an extra garbage bag or grocery bag, reuse something there. There's so many ways to stay organized and you don't have to spend a lot of money and it just helps. It helps make everything run smoother. So. Okay, I don't see any questions. I appreciate all of your input. So here's the secret phrase for today. It is adventure awaits you. So if you're organized, then all you have to do is worry about going and having some fun. Hopefully nothing pops up. But being organized will help help make sure you have the capacity to deal with anything that pops up. So that's all I have today. And I did put that link in. Let me just recopy in case. So everybody gets a case. Somebody joined after I put the link in. So there's the link to the PDF and it will also be linked in the description for the video for the replay. And I hope you guys find that PDF helpful. I put a lot of stuff in there, so. All right, if there's no more questions, then I will let you all go and I will see you tomorrow. Tomorrow's all about organization, like organizing your decor, your holiday decor, and being organized this time of year. I'm going to give you a calendar of events to consider each day through the month of November and December. It's a bonus that I'll put I'll have on here on the live. And it's just some suggestions on things you could be working on. Have you already gathered your list for. If you're sending out Christmas cards, there's on. There's when you should send them. Have you mailed international packages? Have you, you know, just different things that you can do. It's on a little calendar. So I'm hoping that'll be really helpful. And that's a bonus for tomorrow. Tomorrow. So. All right. Thank you, guys. I appreciate you all joining. I'm having fun interacting with people and getting the dms. And if you have any questions, go ahead and DM me or ask me. I'm happy to help. So I'll see you later. Bye.