It is said that a home is a man’s castle. This means that no matter what kind of property you own, it is your personal safe haven from the outside world, even if it doesn’t come with a moat, a drawbridge, and turreted towers. That said, the castle you start with could be necessarily small until you become established in your career and earn enough to afford something bigger. In other words, it’s fairly likely that at some point you’ll move in order to trade up to a nicer property. Or maybe you’ll move for a job, a relationship, or an adventure. And when that day comes you could find yourself floundering in a sea of boxes, totally disorganized and burdened by undue stress. Wouldn’t you like your home move to be smooth sailing? It can be when you plan and organize accordingly.
There are several steps you can take when it comes to ensuring a well-planned and organized move. A good place to start is by sitting down with a calendar to map out the time you have available before you hit the road, so to speak. If you’re working and you have other obligations in the meantime, you should block out times during evenings and weekends to accomplish small tasks like packing boxes or cleaning rooms. Setting aside time will help to stop you from overbooking and ending up with an entire household to pack up at the eleventh hour.
Next you should create lists of tasks to accomplish, and a top-to-bottom mentality can help here. Start at the top level of your house and work your way down to the basement, going room by room to create lists of packing and cleaning tasks that need to be completed. You should also address individual rooms from top-to-bottom so you don’t forget tasks like wiping the ceiling fan blades or steam cleaning the carpet. With a checklist in hand you can break down the gargantuan task of “moving” into much smaller, more manageable items.
In addition, you should take a 3-pronged approach to packing. In the interest of organization, you should create three piles each time you empty out a room: one for the items accompanying you to your new home, one for items that can be sold at a garage sale or donated to charity, and one for trash. You could end up packing significantly fewer boxes this way while getting rid of items that have collected in your home but that you don’t use for whatever reason.
And of course, you’ll want to remain organized when packing boxes, as well. When moving to a new home, it isn’t enough to simply label boxes by room. You also need to give them numbers and note what’s inside. Keep a master list so you can make sure nothing has gone astray when you arrive at your new home. And think about taking photos of each box before you close it as proof should items get lost in transition and you need to ask for reparations. There are mobile apps designed to help you here, but beware – reading user reviews will help you to determine which ones are worth downloading. Hiring a realtor to find you the perfect property is only the beginning. From there you’ll have to plan and organize your move so that the process is as easy as getting from point A to point B.
