Clean out the house. This can start months before a move, and doesn’t have to be a complicated process. It can be as easy as separating your closet, putting everything you’ve worn on one side after you’ve worn it. After a few months, it’ll become evident what items of clothing get worn the most, and what gets neglected. There are different rules of thumb, but after a few months of certain items going untouched, it might be a clear message you’d be okay without that shirt, jacket or dress. The exception here is seasonal clothing. Winter coats can easily go month without being used. Don’t just focus on your closet, this works with kitchen utensils, bookcases and game and linen closets. Keep a trash bag or a large shopping bag handy, and when you see something you can live without, toss it in. After a few months, it’ll be full and ready for a trip to Goodwill or your neighborhood donation center. And above all, moving day will be that much easier with less stuff.
Dedicate a document on your computer, phone or a notepad on the kitchen counter to the move. This will let you have a place for notes, thoughts and ideas that come to you throughout the day, a way to keep all the information straight. Keep a list of all the businesses and services that have your phone number and address, along with any accounts you’ll need to notify of your move and update old information. Even if you sit down to make a list, it’ll be near impossible to remember every single account, so an accessible list will make life easier when you remember a loyalty account or a website you need to update. A bonus of having once place with all the information written down: if there are multiple people involved in the move, there’s a central place with all the information, so you won’t be constantly bombarded with questions.
Organize the actual moving and packing process. Find a reputable moving company by doing your research online: who’s rated highest on Yelp or Angie’s List? Ask your friends, family and neighbors about their movers, or put a question on your Facebook, often Facebook friends are a wealth of helpful information. Ask your friends if they’d be willing to help to do some of the easier packing: folding clothes or stacking books into boxes, and repay them with pizza and drinks. If you can recruit a few friends to help on moving day, that could make it more fun, but also take some stress off you and your family, and shorten moving day. Add a few buffer days before and after the big day, in case something gets behind schedule, or you get everything done days before you expected. That overlap might allow you to avert crisis, or it might just give you peace of mind.
Plan your new home. Figure out how you’ll decorate, and what furniture and items will go in what rooms. Your packing will then have to follow the plan, keeping things together that will go together in the new home, but the planning and extra step taken in packing will make unpacking that much easier. Label boxes, both of what’s inside and what room they should be dropped off in once at the new home, and keep track of pieces of furniture that will be moved to new rooms in the new home.
Get packing materials. Boxes, tape and furniture moving tools, if bought at moving retailers, can be expensive and add up. Ask friends and neighbors if they have boxes lying around, even a few from a few different friends can make a big difference. Call local furniture and grocery stores, as many of them have piles of cardboard boxes in the back, left over from shipments and deliveries. Many of them will go straight to recycling. Save the boxes your groceries are packed up in from Costco, and after a few trips, you’ll have quite the collection.
Lastly, if you’re nearby, put some work into the new house. Having it painted, cleaned and any minor fixes made before you move in will mean less work for you in the end. The last thing you’ll want to do after moving all your things is move them again just to paint the walls or install new flooring. Do it beforehand and save yourself the work of doing it later. In certain cases, it won’t be possible, unless you’re good at making decisions from afar and trust the people doing the work for you.
Because there are so many moving parts in a move, it can be overwhelming and seem unmanageable. But with the right planning, everything can (and will) run as smoothly as you’d like it to. Write things down, and don’t wait until the last minute to try to figure details (and the big things) out. It’ll all be worth it once you get to the new home, things are unpacked and you’re ready for a new start.