OK, before we start I’ll admit. I like to make list. My wife, Katy, says I make list just so I can check things off so I feel like I’m getting stuff done. There may be a small sliver of truth to what she says, but how else do you remember everything if you don’t make lists?
But my system works because I usually don’t forget things, so if you have trouble remembering, things read on. I think there are a few habits that should help you arrive at hunting camp, vacation destinations or even a meeting without forgetting some key item.
Here’s a few tricks that help me. First, don’t wait until the night before you leave to start packing. That’s a guarantee system failure. I’m not a prophet, but here’s what will happen. You’ll be running around like a madman yelling at everyone and leave home the next morning with the wife and all of the kids with hurt feelings. You’ll forget numerous items. At about 10 p.m. you’ll run to the store for the fourth time for some item you forgot the other three times. You’ll suddenly discover that your trailer lights aren’t working. You’ll leave the next morning dead tired. Not a good formula for fun or a successful hunt.
Let’s try this route. Start slowly packing a week ahead of time. Keep a running list on you the last week. That way at work when you remember something, you can write it down. Have your main packing done the day before you leave. That way you can nonchalantly finish packing the night before. This way you’ll have an enjoyable evening with the family. No screaming and hurting everyone’s feelings. In fact, they may actually want you to come home after the hunt!
Other things that can help are to make a camp box. That way all of your cooking utensils are in one spot — just grab the box and you’re good to go. If you have a trailer, that’s even easier. Load it down at your leisure, hook up and you’re off for the mountains.
One last step that I’ve started doing the last few years is to set down a minute and visualize (nothing weird here, you’re just walking through each step and what equipment you’ll need) every activity. Here’s what I mean by this. I think about cooking dinner. Ok, do I have a frying pan, plates, seasoning, walk through every step of that activity listing what you’d need. You get the drift. Do the same thing with what you’ll need to hunt. Make sense?
Try some of these tricks and see if they don't help you out.
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
