And then freaking out that you most likely forgot something important
Or you remember it right after you finished, but it won't fit unless you repack everything.
But at that point I'll do it because it would otherwise bother me till the end of times.
exactly 💯 and then when I realize I forgot the thing it's like what was all the mental preparation for?
At this stage, apart from my medication, I worry the most about my devices and chargers. Everything else, from toiletries to clothes I can buy if it turns out I forgot it and really need it. That lowered my stress with packing significantly (and I am not forgetting more things because of it).
Hi A.D.H.D., I'm D.A.D.
🤣 you got me
For me it's "Time spent worrying about missing something"
Funny, I think I'm the opposite. "Oh shit, we're leaving tomorrow, what should I pack?"
I've got it down to a science so I can procrastinate until the night before:
- How many days? That many pairs of socks, underwear, and shirts, half that many pairs of pants. 2 additional pairs of socks and an extra shirt
- Deodorant
- Check to make sure the dedicated travel phone charger is still packed
- Notebook
- Laptop and charger dedicated to travel
- A book that's easy to pickup and set down
- Corded headphones
- Dedicated laundry bag for trips longer than 10 days
- Bring a toothbrush for trips longer than 3 days
- Bedding, soap, and shampoo only when traveling to the wilderness
I like to travel as light as I can and most of my trips are for a week or less, so oftentimes the only thing I need for luggage is a single carryon bag
- Bring a toothbrush for trips longer than 3 days
Tf you only brush your teeth every 3 days??
this was a helpful starter list thank you lmao! I'm usually a single-carryon dude myself, but this time I'm going camping so I have to bring a checked bag with stuff I never usually think about like a sleeping bag, sleeping pad, tent (which I put up last weekend to make sure I have all the parts & I'm not freaking out in the rain), eclipse glasses, etc
so for a 14 day trip you're taking 7 pairs of pants? that seems like a bit much
if someone tells me we're leaving tomorrow I'm like nuh uh I'm gonna need that in writing and delivered at least 2 weeks in advance sir, otherwise I may perish b/c I'll forget to bring anything to sustain life other than the clothes on my body
I thought I was procrastinating, but I have ADHD, phew
"procrastination" can be seen as avoiding tasks, but IMO we need a different word to describe it for tasks you want to do (which eventually get done) and those you don't (which may not).
seems to me capitalists favor using that word for the former case as an explanation of why people with ADHD take so long to do tasks; they want us to see mental and emotional pre-processing as "wasted time"
I would recommend researching the terms "executive dysfunction" and "demand avoidance".
Demand avoidance is not the same as Pathological Demand Avoidance, which is a Autistic profile type, but maybe for fun look into that too!
I have a few different types of checklists in Google Keep based mostly on length of trip, type of trip, and mode of transportation. They are detailed, down to checking items in my pockets and removing my pocketknife where relevant. For each trip, I make a copy of the relevant list and get packing. I suppose it has taken some time to organize, but now I can pack pretty quickly the night before.
This is the way.
I just keep one huge checklist that I document everything I ever pack to and start by checking off everything I'm not taking on my current trip. Then the rest of the list is enough to make sure I am properly packed.
That's a bit like me, definitely like me for some specific tasks, but as a ratio it's very similar to my attitude towards packing, doing homework/assignments, preparing for job interviews, preparing for any important impactful life moments except with the key difference being the label for the yellow section. For me in those scenarios, including packing, the yellow section represents time spent mentally avoiding the stress and anxiety that comes from mentally preparing for packing or anything else unpleasant by suddenly getting very interested in a random topic and reading all about it, or playing a specific videogame to absolutely ridiculous excess, or watching every episode of a long running series from at least 20 years ago, if I have it available I'm also doing most of these other tasks with a lot of weed.
It's especially shitty because to the outsider, this looks like laziness, and that's not wrong, I mean it's much easier and more pleasurable to do that stuff than the hard thing you should be doing, but I'm not really enjoying that stuff because I'm doing it hard. It might sound impossible to watch a TV series hard, but doing anything in this state is a heart racing extreme form of mental concentration to absolutely fully and completely consume my mind with anything except the source of stress. So it looks like I'm watching TV and laughing at the jokes and I am, but I'm also simultaneously really stressed and tired from expending so much mental energy in to blocking everything else out. Truly a fantastic skill since I'm able to achieve precisely nothing, still get really tired, look like I didn't do anything that would break a sweat at all and still feel like shit and be completely stressed by the end which itself will usually serve as a reminder of how little progress has been made towards the thing I was trying to avoid thinking about which induces a lot of anxiety and self loathing that needs to be fixed by even more intense even harder doing of anything else.
I appreciate your honesty, I can relate b/c I've been there at points in my life too, including the weed. three things helped me kick/reduce all those habits:
- stop expecting perfection from myself by giving myself lots of internal validation every day & replacing self-loathing thoughts with gratitude
- break apart overwhelming tasks into stupidly small tasks like "write the first word of the first paragraph, then the next word, etc"
- be my own parent & stop using weed, other substances and addictions like videogames to distract from the present by deciding to take short breaks (e.g. 1 day/1 week/1 month) & telling myself I'll keep going if I feel good after
I can recommend a book called Don't Believe Everything You Think, it's a short & easy read that reminds you why it's good to be in the present & that all the answers you need are already within you if you're honest enough with yourself to ask & answer those questions. good luck!
I have ADHD and I don't mentally prepare for anything, that's part of the issue.
I prepare and am late anyway.
