How to: Pack

When you're a rising senior in college, there's one thing you've really mastered: packing for the summer. And when I say mastered, I mean "learned how to do haphazardly at best." Here's my guide on how to pack, the extended version. The abridged version goes as follows:

1. Believe in yourself. 

The extended version requires a bit of strategy. The first step is to pick up everything from the floor. The second you pick it up, you either have to put it in the trash, pack it somewhere, or put it somewhere really inconvenient for you to sort out later. I usually put things on my bed. 

Now that everything is off the floor you can take a second to be like "wow this almost looks clean". Good job. The next part gets tedious. Sort your things through a series of piles.  It really depends on the individual on this one. For me, 90% of my stuff gets put into a trash/donation pile. The remainder should be packed in a box that shouldn't be opened once full. 

Once you've packed a box, don't forget to label the contents of the box somehow. Earlier today my friend Carrianne looked at me and said, "I packed my tape in a box, but I need the tape to finish packing. I forget which box it's packed in." Do not be Carrianne. 

After you're done packing that box up, get it out of the room you're cleaning up/packing. Basically, just push it into some other room, so the room you're in has visible progress. It'll keep you motivated to keep going. 

So once you've gotten this all down you should be finished packing. Here are some tips I've picked up, at least for keeping your room to dorm-regulations, as well as general packing tips. 

1. If you're using command hooks and the tape doesn't come off, heat it with a hairdryer and use floss/string to peel the tape off your wall. 
2. If the blue tacky stuff for posters is stuck on your walls, a hot washcloth and faith will get it cleaned.
3. When packing for short distances, forget spacebags. A trash bag with a vacuum and some quick reflexes is just as good. 
1. I mean I don't really use spacebags because they're expensive, but they will seal in the air forever compared to a trash bag that will last for a few days. I usually use the trash bags for flights.
4. Personal rule: If you haven't looked at/used it in at least 3 months, get rid of it. 

So there you have it. I personally like to wait to pack until the very last second and then through a burst of energy accomplish it all at once, leaving you with several hours to just wait with your packed things and think "yeah this worked this was fine", but it's up to you.

BONUS: I tried to find a video example of using trash bags to vacuum-seal your stuff. I succeeded:

But I also found a lot of videos of people vacuum-sealing themselves into trash bags. Don't do that that seems like a really poor decision.