Almost all of us experience the disruption of moving home at some point in our lives. Whether relocating for college, uprooting your family for life across the country in service of a new career path, or simply fancying a change of pace, there are myriad reasons you might find yourself in a whirlwind of packing crates and Scotch tape.
As profound as the decision to move can be, it is also a profoundly stressful undertaking – and one that requires you to pay keen attention to logistics. You aren’t simply picking up a household and dropping it in your new favorite neighborhood; you are ensuring every last item and comfort makes its way from your old life to your new life, with minimal disruption or delay to getting unpacked and getting on with things.
While you might be taken up with more essential administrative tasks, such as the transferring of home internet and cable services to your new address – or even sorting out visas for your family – it is no less important to get your packing done efficiently and effectively. If you’re shipping your belongings abroad, you’ll want to know where every last item is; if you’re hauling your homeware cross-country, you’ll want to make life as easy as possible when it comes to loading up, unloading, and unpacking in your new home.
What Will You Need?
In order to effect a proper and efficient packing process, you’ll need to invest in some essential things. Gone are the days of pouring bric-a-brac into ‘borrowed’ fruit crates and appliance boxes! Instead, invest in some proper flat-pack cardboard crates and boxes, along with some good-quality tape to package them up. Stretch film is incredibly useful for bundling items of furniture together and keeping boxes snug in transit. Meanwhile, bubble wrap is essential for keeping your more delicate ornaments and crockery from getting damaged.
Key Tips for Efficient Packing
Start in Advance
A basic tip, but nonetheless important, is to get started on your packing as soon as you possibly can. The less you leave to the last minute, the more time you have to spend on more important aspects of your move!
Room by Room
An extremely effective way to simplify your packing process is to go room by room. It can be easy to get lost in attempts to partition your belongings by category – but packing by room actually makes your job on the other end much easier. Labeling boxes according to the room (with sub-labels for contents) means you can immediately place boxes in their new home without having to open and sort through them.
Declutter and Donate
Packing is often made more difficult simply by the sheer volume of belongings you have – belongings that you might not actually have an interest in keeping. Rather than going through the motions and packing everything, why not be more ruthless and treat your packing process as a decluttering process too? Spare and unwanted items can be donated to a local organization or charity.
Pack a Go Bag
Lastly, while packing you should take a moment to pack yourself a ‘go bag’. This might resemble the bag you pack for a short vacation, including toiletries and chargers as well as a change of clothes. It should also include a small amount of cutlery and crockery, just so you can cook a meal or two without having to unpack your kitchen completely!