Everyone knows that moving can be a huge pain. Whether you’re moving across the country or down the street, it’s a major hassle to pack up your whole life and move it from one place to another. However, there are a number of ways to make the moving process more efficient and less stressful. Check out these five hacks that can make your move faster and easier.
1. Start Packing Early
Although packing always seems like such a simple task, it often ends up taking much longer than you expect it to. Sometimes you may not realize how much stuff you own until you have to pack it all up and move it into your new house! That’s why you should start packing your belongings well before moving day.
Start with the items that you know you won’t be using on a day-to-day basis—this could include anything from the books lying around your house to the pair of skis stowed away in the closet. Then once you start to approach your planned moving day, you can begin to pack away the more essential items.
By packing early, you’ll avoid having to pack everything the night before moving day, cut down on stress, and allow yourself more time to come up with an organized packing strategy.
2. Hire Professional Help
Hiring professional movers is probably the best way to take some of the burden off yourself and make your move go faster. Enlisting the services of a moving company will save you the trouble of loading all of your boxes into your car, transporting them, and unloading them into your new home.
This is especially true if you own some particularly heavy or bulky items, or if you’re moving into a place that requires you to carry your stuff up several flights of stairs. Many moving companies can even assist you if you’re traveling to another state—for instance, if you hire movers in San Antonio, they could potentially help you move all the way to Boston!
3. Label Your Moving Boxes
If you just randomly pack whatever fits into your boxes, your belongings will likely become scattered, and it could make for a very confusing situation when trying to move into your new place. That’s why you should try to pack similar things together and provide each box with a label.
One simple strategy might be to pack items based on the room they belong in. Then all you have to do is write the appropriate room (i.e. kitchen, living room, bathroom, etc.) on the side of the box, along with a short list of what’s inside of it. Also, if a box contains fragile items like porcelain plates, you should note that as well.
Labeling every box according to room will make it easy to stay organized when you move into the new place. You’ll be able to quickly know where to put each box, while at the same time lessening the chances that you’ll lose any of your possessions in the confusion of moving.
4. Space Out the Moving Process
If possible, start moving stuff over to your new place before your official moving day. Of course, whether or not you’re able to do this ultimately depends on when your lease begins and how far away your new place is located—for example, it wouldn’t really make sense to do this if you’re moving from Seattle to Palm Beach.
However, if you can, move your belongings over piece by piece. By breaking up the moving process into small pieces and spacing it out over time, you can reduce the stress of moving day by minimizing the amount of work you’ll have to do.
5. Purchase Supplies in Advance
The last thing you want to do on moving day is drop everything and go to the store to buy additional supplies. To avoid this hassle, get all the supplies you need before moving day—and make sure you get enough of it. You can usually find packing supplies at your local postal store like UPS. Some of the things that you should pick up before you move include:
- Cardboard boxes (in a variety of sizes)
- Packing tape
- Box cutter
- Bubble wrap or packing paper
- Markers for labeling boxes
- Scissors
Use this as a checklist on moving day, or else make your own to suit your particular needs. Whatever you do, just be sure that you’re prepared.
While moving can be a challenging process, it can also be an exciting one. With these hacks in mind, hopefully you’ll be able to minimize the stresses of moving and focus more on the excitement of a new beginning. Maybe you can even start thinking about organizing a housewarming party!
