3 ways to make planning a vacation a little easier for you

3 ways to make planning a vacation a little easier for you3 ways to make planning a vacation a little easier for youYou can follow a pre-vacation checklist one line at a time - including setting up the perfect out-of-office email reply - and still feel frazzled when youre planning a trip.Here are three ways to take the edge off during the process.Stay ready do some packing before you actually have toThis could both save time and help you avoid forgetting something on your way out.The Washington Post features information from and about Alice Boyes, PhD, the author of The Anxiety Toolkit and a former psychologist. Heres some insight on how she stays ready for travel.Rather than repacking toiletries every time, Boyes keeps duplicates of items she uses frequently, such as her toothbrush and toothpaste. She places one in a suitcase and keeps one at home. She also keeps clothing in her suitcase that she knows she will wear on the road. This allows her to put less time and energy into pre paring the night before when shes usually still working late, the publication reports.Before leaving tell your colleagues when you will and wont be freeElizabeth Grace Saunders, an author, founder of Real Life E Time Coaching Speaking and time management coach, explains this in the Harvard Business Review.Once youve figured out what you will do before leaving on vacation and what can be handled while youre away, clarify what you will not do until you return. I recommend having a sense of this in your mind early. But wait until three or four days before you leave to make the final call on whats in or out. By then you should be sure about what you can reasonably accomplish, and you can relay this information to your boss, teammates, and anyone else involved in the work, she writes.It can be uncomfortable to have these conversations, but its almost always best to be up front about what to expect instead of leaving people hanging who are expecting something from you, and then having to absprache with a mid-vacation crisis caused by lack of communication. Update colleagues on the status of projects and let them know that nothing will move forward until after you get back in the office. Also, give key individuals the heads-up that you wont be available - or as available - during the time that youre away, Saunders continues.On the trip dont get flustered too easilyDont forget to cut yourself some slack.Social psychologist Susan Newman told the Readers Digest that when things go off-track on your trip, you should think of it as an adventure, because often the mishaps and the things that go wrong actually become either humorous in your memory bank or the best thing that happened on the whole vacation.