Packing Cubes & Priorities

For years, I was a chaotic traveler.

The night before a trip looked like this: An open suitcase on the bed. Clothes in piles across chair and floor. Self-doubt on loop: “Did I pack enough clothes?” “Where’s my charger?”

I’d show up at the airport with overweight bags, bargaining with airline staff while silently cursing myself. Then came the joy of hauling multiple suitcases across roads, staircases and train stations — great for biceps, even greater for wiping hot tears.

The chaos wasn’t just about luggage.. it then carried forward into the entire trip.

In 2019, I was moving from Singapore to Mumbai and had saved up for a 6-week detour (vacation) planned across four climate zones with more than 12 change of stays. Every few days I'd have to relocate, mostly via public transport.

Knowing my past shenanigans, I set some ground rules:

That’s when YouTube whispered the gospel of packing cubes to my many backpacking-inspired searches. I was skeptical — “How efficient can a zippered rectangle really be?”

But I bought a set, and somewhere between city #4 and climate zone #3, I was converted.

Your workday is a suitcase

Limited in space and with a heavy load. We often try to cram everything in, reacting to what's urgent rather than what’s important. Meetings bleed into thinking time, and to-do lists grow hydra heads. By the end of day, we’re exhausted, unsure of what actually moved forward.

That’s where the "packing cube mindset" comes in.

🧩 Compartmentalization as a Superpower

In psychology, compartmentalizing is sometimes seen as avoidance. But in time management, it can be a superpower. When you sort your day into clear, intentional blocks (just like packing cubes), you give each priority its rightful space and bandwidth, and most importantly — its limits.

🧠 The Packing Cube Approach

As a leader, your day is about doing and deciding. It’s juggling short-term fires with long-term vision. It's showing up for your team while carving out space to think clearly and act fast. And without boundaries, all your priorities get blurry.

That’s why the packing cube mindset is essential to actually move things forward instead of being stuck in a loop.

Here’s how you can own your time, no matter your role:

🟧 Define your cubes

No more “misc piles.” Instead of reacting to everything, name your 3–5 work cubes for the month. This can be based on your business cycles - during some months Ops is the only cube, and the other months allow for learning & strategy. Mine often look like:

📍 Vision & Strategy

🤝 Team Building

🔥 Daily Ops

🔭 Learning & Research

🧘🏽 Deep Work

Don't forget - your personal life needs cubes too!

🟪 Match your “Me Cube” and “We Cube” to your reality

Decide when you’re available and when you’re not. For me, focus time happens on my morning commute — I'm caffeinated, undistracted, and blissfully off Instagram. On weekends, early mornings are just gorgeous — no one else is awake to distract you!

🟩 Use tools & AI as zippers

Productivity Apps help keep cubes from spilling into each other, and no - you don't need to be on paid versions a lot of the times.

Systems > willpower. Always.

🟦 Give vision its own cube

Future-building doesn’t happen between back-to-back calls. Block time — even if it's fortnightly — to think, challenge assumptions, scan trends, dream bigger. If you’re not doing this, you’re just managing. Not leading.

🟥 Reflections & repacking

Every fortnight I ask:

Which cube dominated? (Usually ops.)

Which got neglected? (Often vision.)

Packing cubes saved me baggage fees and gave me a mental model for work. Their real power isn’t just their visual appeal — it’s that you get full flexibility AND control.

When you want to grow, cubes help you take on more without drowning. Each new priority gets its own space, without spilling over the rest.

And when it’s time to delegate or de-prioritize, cubes make it obvious what to remove. You don’t end up carrying weight that no longer belongs to you.