There is nothing more exciting than planning a trip: find the destination, the most important places to visit, the best places to eat, the clothes every day to be comfortable while been perfect in each photo … Wait! How will I manage to keep everything I want to carry in my suitcase?
Have you ever sat on a suitcase to close it? Packing your luggage is probably the most stressful part of a trip, getting everything you want to take in such a small space and without exceeding the maximum weight allowed (in case you are going to take a plane) is a challenge many times we do not get it, or is it easy to say no to a “just in case”?
As we know how difficult it can be, we bring you the guidelines to make the perfect suitcase following the advice of Marie Kondo, an expert in maintaining order in the home. Thanks to her method, KonMari, she has already published several books and even currently has a series on Netflix that helps many people to successfully overcome this challenge.
The two fundamental principles of the KonMari method are to stay only with what is useful and at the same time make you happy, getting rid of the rest and those with which you decide to stay, organize them by categories to optimize the space.
Following these two maxims and other tricks of the order guru we bring you the definitive guide to make the perfect suitcase, only with the necessary and in an organized way.
Planning
The first thing you should do is plan what activities you are going to do on the trip and what you need. Plan your suitcase and what you should take according to the destination, the time you are going to be out, the temperature it will make and, of course, the size of the suitcase you plan to take with you.
Keeping these issues in mind when preparing it will make it easier to choose what you need and do not forget anything important. It is not the same trip three days that of seven, a relaxing beach holiday or a destination for tourism and be all day walking.
Once you have this clear, you can go to the next level, take everything you think you’ll need.
Only what is really necessary
Now that you are clear on what to prepare your suitcase, take everything you think you will need and put it on the bed to have a general view. Surely at this moment you realize how exaggerated you have been and that it is impossible to keep all that in the suitcase.
It is time to carry out one of the most important principles of the KonMari method, get rid of everything that is not really essential. To do this, divide in two piles everything you have on the bed, the dispensable and the essential. Remember that they just take up a lot of space.
Everything you have placed in dispensable is discarded, and with the pile of essentials is again selected. You will see that not everything was as essential as you thought. Garment per garment; choose only those that really make you happy, those that you would really miss if you left them at home.
Organization by categories
Once decided what you have to take, you must organize everything by categories, shoes, clothes, personal hygiene items, electronics… for Kondo everything has its place.
This you must do both in the bed and inside the suitcase. It is necessary to organize everything by categories from the beginning so that it is more difficult to forget something, besides that you can make sets with the clothes of the different categories.
This organization must keep it at the time of keeping things in the suitcase, since in this way you will always know where everything is.
Space optimization
The time has come to keep everything and, not only do you have to do it by categories, but you also have to optimize the space.
To achieve this, Kondo advises us to do it in the form of rolls, the main thing is to fold the clothes so that it stays vertical, so that we can keep it side by side and have a vision of everything. Remember that always by categories and if possible by colors.
Obviously, shoes cannot be stored in that way, but they also have their trick. You must put each pair in a separate bag and so that one sole is attached to the other, forming a kind of square.
In this way, every time you want to take something from your suitcase, you will not have to mess up everything to find it.
Neaseres
The last key to make a suitcase in an orderly manner is to use toiletry bags; for the smallest things and the toilet products.
Keeping clothes in bags will make everything more orderly, but as perhaps keeping everything is too much, we advise that at least the underwear and the categories of electronics, jewelry and toilet go together in a different toilet. This way you will not get lost among the rest of the clothes.
We must recognize that Marie Kondo is the queen of minimalism, but the truth is that her method works perfectly to not have to get to sit on top of the suitcase to get it closed. It also has another positive point, when we are in our destination we will not have to ask where to keep the souvenirs ;).
