Do you remember the last time you went on vacation? If so, do you remember how you felt before the vacation when you were getting ready a few days in advance?

If you’re like most people, you probably felt excited to go on vacation yet stressed out by everything you needed to do before leaving for your trip.

Maybe you were thinking, “I still need to tackle my to-do list before leaving.” Or maybe you said, “I’ll never get this stuff done in time before the trip.”

Or maybe you even thought, “This vacation is coming at the worst time. I should have scheduled this trip for a different week.”

A lot of people feel like this before vacation. Excited, yet stressed by everything they need to do to prepare in advance.

When I was a kid, my family and I would drive 8 hours from Maryland to South Carolina every summer to visit Nana & Pops. I still remember getting in the car each time and my parents looked stressed out while my sister and I sat in the back all giddy to go to Mrytle Beach.

As a kid, I always wondered why my parents were so anxious every time before a trip. After all, we’re going on vacation – who stresses?! Well, they did. And it’s probably because there was always so much to do before leaving the house that luckily we didn’t have to worry about as kids.

That brings me to this past week.

Next week I’m going on vacation with three of my girlfriends. (Ed and Mojo will have to fend for themselves for a few days!) That means, this past week I was in operation “get stuff done” in order to prepare for going away next week.

In efforts to remain calm and not let stress take over before my vacation, last week I made myself a “This is what you absolutely must do before vacation” list. The list only included tasks (both personal and work tasks) with deadlines and anything else I must do before I check-out for my trip next week.

What the list didn’t include were all of my open projects. My goal wasn’t to get absolutely everything done before leaving for vacation. Although that would have been nice, it’s unrealistic. Instead, my goal was to get “what’s absolutely needed to accomplish” done and anything else accomplished was just for extra brownie points.

I must say, spending a few minutes getting myself organized last week made a huge difference in how stressed (or lack of stress) I felt this past week in preparation for my vacation.

If you feel like vacation never comes at the “perfect” time when you’re actually ready to leave organized and prepared, then do what I did.

Before you go on vacation, make a “This is what I absolutely must do before vacation” checklist. And from that point forward until you leave for vacation, work off of that list. You’ll be more clear on what needs to get done before checking-out of the house.

And what about all of the open projects that didn’t make your “absolutely need to get done” list? Well, those tasks can wait until after your vacation. Relax and go enjoy yourself.

That just about sums up this past week.