I’m typically a last-minute packer. It’s a two-step process that begins with a list and ends with the zipping up of my carry-on suitcase.

But this time is different. Yes, there’s a list – an exhaustive one – but there’s also a few extra steps. And none of this is coming together last-minute (even if it’s starting to feel a bit like it).  So today, six days from take-off,  I’m doing a dry-run.  For the past month, a mountain of clothing and gear has been growing on top of my backpack, and it must now try to fit inside.  Crossing fingers.

Even in this crazed travel plan’s infancy I found myself looking forward to the simplicity of carrying all I needed on my back, effectively reducing my one bedroom apartment to a 55 liter backpack.  I recall one Sunday evening a couple of months ago: In a feverish attempt to organize myself for the workweek ahead, I raced around my apartment picking up armfuls of sweaters, boots, bags and books and depositing them in their various nooks and crannies.  I remember feeling angry about spending any of my precious weekend hours doing this mundane task, and it was then that it hit me: I had bought each of these items because I thought they would make me happy.  And here they were not.

I’m hardly aspiring to join a Buddhist monastery; I don’t think such a level of minimalism would necessarily make me happy either – such is the plight of us first-world dwellers.  But I’m eager to see how I fair with a wardrobe rotation of five items and a beauty routine that has been reduced to a tiny hairbrush and a sample-size tube of mascara.  First things first: dash any ambitions of being a fashion icon.  If I couldn’t achieve such status in San Francisco, it’s certainly not happening now.

And there’s a certain liberation to stripping away all of the ‘things’ that often get in the way of my ability to focus on what I know in my heart of hearts actually matters.  What might I have time to ponder if I’m not wasting brain space thinking about what I’ll wear to dinner?

I suspect that, regardless of whether my hair is shampooed and my clothes are wrinkle-free, the meal will actually taste just as fabulous.