In my travel & packing notes for next time, there is a line item — slightly above the assertions that “the eggs are usually gross” at hotel breakfasts, and “ferry WiFi is varely^[sic] worth using” — that says: I rarely have time/energy to do as many things as I think.

I travel a reasonable amount, and tend to feel overbooked leading up to a trip, and think, oh, I’ll have time for that on the drive/plane/train/ferry.

So I stuff my backpack full of torn-out notebook sheets of things to finish, and then sit in a bleary-eyed torpor eating food of questionable quality and staring out the window, while the things I brought to work on get crumpled and food-strained, and prepare to silently judge me when I unpack upon arrival.

I have often pondered: why does time traveling go by so quickly? Why are those long hours so often effectively a write-off?

The obvious factors are obvious. When traveling, I tend to be tired, potentially nauseous, hot, sweaty, greasy, frequently-interrupted, dehydrated, full-bladdered, cramped, incessantly-talked at, interested in the scenery, and saving my energy for whatever I am traveling to do.

Eventually, I realized these facts, and made two lists:

1. Fun or useful things to do in the van on long drives.md
2. Things that it’s possible to productively work on when very tired.md

But there’s something else going on. Yes, I tend to be tired, sweaty, and full of junk food. Yet, even when I am a passenger, I don’t even tend to get around to doing simple, non-intellectually-taxing tasks!

I noticed that there is one thing I can reliably do: read. Specifically, read on an e-reader. Often, I can read reasonably taxing books; almost always, I can manage to read something light, at least for a few hours until my eyes tire.

It was by thinking about this one thing that I reliably get around to doing when travelling that I discovered the hidden gumption trap that was catching the feeble productive impulses my brain and body do occasionally produce.

I call it backpack activation energy.

What is it that makes e-reading easy? Three things:

1. It only requires one item, which has endless battery life and a built in light, and which is easy to hold even when cramped.
2. My Kobo is 7.6 mm thick, lives in the most accessible place in my backpack, and can reliably be extracted and returned, blindfolded, no matter how overstuffed my luggage is.
3. I like doing it.

Using my computer is probably the second-easiest thing to get around to when travelling: it shares many of the same features.

Reading physical books that I brought with rarely ever occurs, even though I doggedly persist in bringing them, and in theory reading paper books has a lot in common with reading on an e-reader. The difference? Paper books get banged up when traveling, and produce a peculiar fingernails-on-chalkboard sensation when I reach into my snake-digesting-an-elephant backpack and pull out my book, and it feels like tug-of-war between me and the six USB cables caught between the pages.

Yes, you have just read an entire essay about the fact that I don’t like getting things out of my backpack. Finding and extracting things from a full backpack takes physical and psychic energy that I don’t have — unless, of course, it’s chocolate.

What about solutions? I don’t have any good ones, but here are some that are slightly better than nothing:

1. Use ziploc bags. I put all small items that I use frequently in a few large clear ziploc bags in the main compartment, categorized by category (though categorizing by colour would look cool). Looking like a homeless person = in this case, totally worth it.
2. Don’t bring so much stuff. Last I checked, personality surgery hadn’t been invented yet, but I’m definitely on the waiting list.
3. Partially accept partial defeat, and then doggedly demand partial victory. Realize that BAE is a thing that must be worked with. Then, figure out which productive things are just at or below your personal BAE threshold, and do those things, rather than the things for which there is no hope.
4. Keep a notebook and pen in your pocket at all times, so you don’t have to bargain with yourself{rel="noreferrer"}.
5. Pretend you are wrestling a bull to the ground when digging for your earplugs, and the sweating and grunting is part of the glory.
6. Drink more coffee. Sorry, it’s the best I’ve got.