Looking For Toiletry Bags For Men?

For me, the Ebags Pack-It-Flat is the best of all the Dopp kits for men.

For most of my corporate life I was a very frequent traveller. In fact, for the last 3 years, I lived in one city and worked in another - an hour's flight away.

When you travel this frequently, you need to be able to pack in less than 10 minutes and be on your way. To achieve this, you need to be well organized.

One of the key items in my travel setup is a travel toiletry bag. Early on in my travelling routine I figured out that it was best to have a second set of toiletries for travel. So, I invested in another set of personal care items - from razor to hair brush. And then I added some medication and a pack of emergency items.

I made this page to share my tips for a well organized, well stocked toiletry kit with you.

I assimilated the ideas from travel magazines and tips from colleagues. The most important element is the hanging toiletry bag itself. Tip - it needs to be a flat one!

What Is More Important - Packing Things Right, Or Packing The Right Things?

Answer: Both!

Looking back at many, many business and holiday trips, there are two things that frustrated me - until I worked out solutions to each:

1) Arriving home after a trip and unpacking clothing items I hadn't needed.

2) Not having an essential item whilst travelling.

I solved the first problem by developing clothing lists. Each time I arrived home I noted what I had packed and what I hadn't used. I also noted whether it was a business or personal trip, the length of the trip in days and what season it was. The next time I had a similar trip I omitted the unnecessary clothing items until I had the list for that type of trip optimised.

To solve the second problem I invested in a toiletries bag for travel only. It contains a second set of everything I use at home, but in travel sizes where possible. My toiletries travel bag has the following types of item:

1) Personal care consumables: Toothpaste, mouth wash, shampoo, shaving gel and deodorant.

2) Personal care items: Hair brush, razor, nail brush, nail clippers (be careful of air travel security rules), clothes brush.

3) Over the counter remedies: Headache tablets, antacid, stomach remedy, antihistamine , band-aid strips.

4) Useful items: Travel sewing kit, compact torch.

5) Ziploc bag with: Staple (useful for repairing eyeglasses), paper clips, cellotape/scotch tape, rubber bands, safety pins, ear buds.

I have used different types of toiletries bag for travel. For me, the flat, collapsible style, like the eBags Pack-it-Flat Toiletry Kit, is by far the most compact and versatile. The travel-sized bottles included with the bag enable you to reduce the overall size and weight of your toiletries bag.

The items on my list fit easily into the Pack-It-Flat. Women may find it convenient to invest in a second toiletries travel bag for make-up. The Pack-it-Flat comes in several colors, so you can color-code your toiletries and make-up travel bags.

Dopp Kits For Men - To Hook Or Not To Hook, That Is The Question.

Hotel bathrooms differ immensely. And so do bathrooms elsewhere. There doesn't seem to be a norm. Some have large vanities, others just a basin in a unit. Some have hooks behind the door, others not.

You have a simple choice when deciding how to use your toiletries travel bag - lay it flat on the vanity or hang it.

Personally, I prefer to hang it away from the basin because there is less chance of things getting wet. However, you will need something to hang it on. And that may be some distance from the basin, bath or shower.

Either way, this toiletries travel bag has it covered. If you choose to lay it flat on the vanity, you can detach the hook if you wish. If you wish to hang it, the hook is wide enough to fit over most things - wall or door hooks, towel rails, mirrors, door knobs.

That's versatility for you!

How Long Should A Blog Post Be?

Answer: Both long and short.

What? That doesn’t make sense. It will if you read on ….

Over the last few months I have read article after article, forum post after forum post and training course after training course on this topic. Some recommend blogs posts of at least 800 words, others over 1000. Nearly all use the term “quality content” without really defining what that is. Everyone agrees that “fluff” is to be avoided, but few will tell you what “fluff” is.

One content watchdog helpfully described quality content as “you’ll know it when you see it”.

Last week I struggled to get my head around a blog article on, quite prophetically, becoming a freelance writer. I knew what I wanted to convey, but the structure and words eluded me.

So, it ended up taking me more than a day to complete and it is much longer than my typical blog posts. I wondered how I could improve my writing productivity and learn to “churn them out” more quickly.

So, I read everything I could lay my hands on, including this post about productivity written by a writer suffering from ADHD and another on writing “epic shit”. Then I referred back to some training on traffic generation under today’s rules.

The conclusion from synthesising all of this – you need to write a mix of both short and long blog posts.

Why You Need both Short And Long Posts

Let me explain.

Why You Need Short Posts

Search engines take into account how active a blog is. Have you noticed how traffic drops off if you don’t post anything for some time?

Not every post can be a trove of magnetic content. But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t take a valuable snippet and turn it into a short, valuable post that is useful to visitors.

The best tip from the ADHD blogger is to separate blog post preparation from writing the post itself. I have come across this idea before, in Mark Levy’s book, Accidental Genius. It makes the point that, by researching and preparing the ideas behind the content beforehand, you will allow yourself greater freedom in the writing itself.

That way you can produce short, valuable posts quickly.

And, Why You Also Need Epic Posts

All the experts agree, though, that the long-term success of your blog is determined by your ability to produce “epic” posts at regular intervals.

What is an epic post? The top 10 search results for most keywords run to over 2000 words. This does not mean that you should set out to write as verbosely as possible. It means that you need to find the occasional topic that is so “meaty” and thought-provoking that to do justice to it requires a longer article.

Epic articles blow people away with their usefulness, change lives (or at least prompt people to change course) and build a raving audience.

If it takes you over a day to write an epic post, it is time well spent.

I must admit that I am a lot more encouraged than I was after taking over a day to complete the freelance writing post. And, I don’t worry so much about writing productivity.

It is the end result that matters.