I packed my first car this weekend. Well, obviously that’s not true, I have packed cars before or have been a part of packing cars. Whether that was helping my dad as a teenager or packing a car full of friends and their belongings for a college road trip. I have packed the car for trips my wife and I alone and that we have taken as a family of three. When I say I packed my first car this weekend, I mean I loaded the car for the first time as the dad of our complete family of four. I mean that I had to use every last inch to ensure that we had everything we needed. I mean that I was responsible for all of our stuff and our persons making it into the car and to the destination (Governor Dodge State Park for a tent camping weekend) in working order.
Before I go on, please know that I am my status as a father of two and a husband to a wife because that’s my family dynamic. I believe the messages will apply to your particular situation.
Something activated in me as I was contemplating how to tackle the problem of fitting too much stuff in a not large enough area. First, I laid out all of our stuff on the deck. Second, I harkened back to advice my dad gave me back in the day that I had not needed to employ heretofore, put the bigger and less forgiving items in first. Third, save pillows and sleeping bags and bags of towels to stuff into the top of the gray Hyundai Tucson’s SUV trunk. Fourth, use the seat wells while the kids don’t need them for fragile items like the bag full of Baked Cheetos and bananas and sandwich bread and peanut butter and for oddly shaped items like a football that you’ll use for 15 minutes. Fifth, put tall items like strollers in the one back seat that is not occupied by a car seat.
Success! Everything fits. Camping with a three year old and three month old was a lot of work, but worth it. We came back drained but fulfilled.
Packing a car to its max does harken to an overused, but successful parable. The one about the professor filling up a glass cylinder with rocks and then stones and then pebbles and then sand and then water to demonstrate when the receptacle is truly full as a means to explain time or relationship management, so that’s not what I am going to suggest can be taken away from this packing story. What I will submit are two things: Pay attention to the lessons you are taught in the present because at some point they will become valid for your particular circumstance. And secondly, when you are packing the vehicle of your life, start with the big and less pliable things first. For me, I am paying most attention to my family, my health, my business, and my friends. Everything else I want to take with me can fit in where there is room.
This can also very much apply to your work life. Once you figure out which they are (which is another discussion altogether) the tasks that have the most impact should occupy the most secure spot. Fit everything else when and where you can.
