The travel drawer: how to stop forgetting things when you pack.
You get to the hotel, unzip your bag, and the charger is not there. You were sure you packed it. You can even picture yourself packing it.
This note shows you how to stop forgetting things when packing with one fixed place for everything travel related: a travel drawer, a five minute packing routine that runs from it, and a habit of restocking the moment you get home.
I was always forgetting something when I traveled. I would think I had put it in my bag, and I had not. So I started a travel drawer. Everything travel related goes into that one space and only that space. Instead of running around the house looking for a million things, I open one drawer, and preparing for a trip is so much easier.
What goes in a travel drawer.
The drawer works on one rule: everything in it is a duplicate. It is not where your everyday charger goes between trips. It is a second charger that never leaves. The moment you borrow from the drawer on a Tuesday, it stops being reliable.
Start with the things you have forgotten before. Those are your real list.
THE TRAVEL DRAWER
| Item | Why it lives there |
|---|---|
| Phone charger, cable and wall plug | The most forgotten thing in any bag. A second set means you never unplug the one by your bed. |
| Power adapter | You need it a few times a year and can never find it when you do. |
| Earbuds and their charging cable | Small, easy to leave on the desk, and missed on every flight or train. |
| Travel size toiletries | Toothpaste, deodorant, face wash and lotion already sized and packed, so nothing comes out of the bathroom. |
| Travel toothbrush and a small hairbrush | The two things most women remember at the airport. |
| Hair ties, bobby pins, a small mirror | They disappear at home. In the drawer they stay put. |
| Empty zip bags and a laundry bag | For liquids going out and worn clothes coming back. |
| A pen and a folding tote | For forms, notes and the extra things you bring home. |
If you travel abroad, give your passport one corner of the drawer and nowhere else.
Set up the drawer in one afternoon.
Pick the drawer closest to where you pack. A dresser drawer in the bedroom is ideal. If you do not have a spare drawer, a lidded bin on a closet shelf works the same way.
- Empty it completely. Whatever was in there moves somewhere else.
- Gather what you already own. Walk the house once with a bag and collect the stray cables, hotel toiletries and travel bottles hiding in other drawers.
- Write down what is missing. Usually it is a second charger and an adapter. Buy them once, this week.
- Use two pouches. One for liquids and toiletries, one for cables and small things. Packing becomes two motions instead of twenty.
- Tape a list inside the drawer. Everything that should be in it, plus the few things that cannot live there, like your phone, wallet, keys and anything you use every single day.
How to stop forgetting things when packing: the five minute routine.
The routine is the same for a two night work trip or a week away. Clothes are their own decision. This is everything else.
THE FIVE MINUTE PACK
- Open the drawer and lift out both pouches. Put them in your bag first.
- Read the list taped inside the drawer, top to bottom, out loud if it helps.
- Add anything trip specific to the top of your bag tonight, not tomorrow morning.
- Set your phone, wallet and keys on top of the bag before bed.
- Look in the drawer one last time. Anything still there that this trip needs, the adapter, the tote, goes in now.
That last look is the quiet check. It catches the charger before the hotel does.
Restock the drawer when you unpack, not when you leave.
Most packing mistakes are made at the end of the last trip. The toothpaste ran out on Thursday, you came home tired, and nobody wrote it down. The next trip finds an empty tube.
So unpack the pouches first, before the laundry, before the mail. Put them straight back in the drawer. Anything that ran low goes on a sticky note on the front of the drawer.
Then put the restock on your week. If you plan on Sunday, write it under Her Home so it happens on an ordinary Tuesday, not the night before you fly. The Year of You, an undated planner that opens every week on Sunday, has room for exactly this kind of small, useful task.
If clothes are where trips go wrong for you, read why trying on your outfits before you travel saves the whole week.
Use the drawer idea for other things you repeat.
The travel drawer is not really about travel. It is about giving a recurring task one home, so you stop hunting for the same things every time.
A good test: if you do something more than four times a year and search the house for the same items each time, it deserves a drawer, a bin or a pouch.
- A gift wrap bin: tape, scissors, tissue, a few blank cards and a pen. With the holidays coming, this one pays for itself by December.
- A car pouch: a phone cable, tissues, a spare hair tie, a little cash for parking.
- A paperwork folder: the forms, bills and letters that need an answer, all in one place until Sunday.
- A work bag pouch: a second laptop charger, a pen, lip balm and a notebook that never leave the bag.
Give the task one home, and you stop searching for it.
Start with the travel drawer. Once it works, you will see the next one everywhere.
ONE THING FOR THIS WEEK
Choose the drawer and empty it. Put one duplicate phone charger inside and tape a blank list to the inside. The drawer is started.
One drawer. Nothing left on the counter.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Cari Hawthorne is the founder of Discover HER Collection and the creator of The Year of You, an undated planner for the woman who is ready to come first in her own life.