By Aurora McCausland
Moving is such a stressful time of your life. Everything is uprooted, and often you feel like you don’t have enough time to accomplish everything that needs to happen. It’s the time that you probably need order and organization more than any other time of your life, and it’s the time that you have the least of both order and organization in your life. Boxes are piled up to your ceilings, with a mismatch of items in them, your sink is overflowing with dishes, and you can’t get any of your children to pack up their toys because they’re on strike due to not wanting to move. Everything is chaotic, but this list isn’t. Here’s a moving checklist to help you get back on your feet, and restore just a little bit of order.
Make a list of things you need leading up to the move
There’s nothing worse than packing up a room, and then later that day, realizing you need something out of one of the boxes you packed up. Yikes. Before you start taping up boxes, make a list of the things that you know you’ll need leading up to the day of the move. Set those things aside, and then feel free to pack up everything else.
Do one room at a time
When you are trying to do everything at once, it’s basically impossible to get anything done. Start small, and do one room at a time. Your kitchen should be one of the last rooms to get packed up. We recommend starting with closets and any rooms that you store things in! These are the things that you need least often, so you won’t need them before you move out. Pack up these rooms first and get them done, and out of the way. Those are often the hardest and most time consuming things to pack up, anyway, so you’ll really benefit from doing them first.
Label EVERYTHING
You move into your new place and…have a bunch of unlabeled boxes. Or, you have 17 boxes labeled “kitchen” but you have no idea which ones have the drinking glasses in them. When you pack something into a box, clearly label the box with not only what room it should be going into, but include a few keywords to help you know what’s inside the box. This helps you avoid confusion and keeps things more organized as you are moving into your new place.
Organize everything into piles to keep and get rid of
As you go through your home, room by room, and pack things up, you should have a designated box or pile of things that you no longer want and won’t be bringing with you to your new home. Moving is a great chance to purge your home and get rid of the things that you no longer need or don’t want.
Have a garage sale
And what should you do with that massive pile of useless things that you don’t want to bring with you? Have a garage sale. Set up fliers, post in local yard sale groups on facebook, and let everyone know that you are having a garage sale! This will not only help you get rid of all of those things, but it’s better for the environment than just taking everything to the dump. One man's trash is another man's treasure, so you should definitely try to resell these things you don’t want, at a garage sale. Everything you don’t sell, you can either post for sale on websites like craigslist, or you can just take everything to a local thrift store.
Organize a trip to the dump
All of that trash and non-resellable junk in your house should be thrown out. Don’t bring your trash with you. You can either organize to bring a truck load of trash to the local dump, or you can rent a dumpster! This can make it more convenient, since someone else will come and pick it up for you. And you don’t need any more tasks added to your load, right?
