5 Easy Ways To Instantly Optimise Your House Move

Have you ever noticed that when people move their homes they fall in to some really bad habits that are completely predictable? Because of the disruption to their life and familiar surroundings, not to mention the stress of actually moving, people leave a lot of packing up of unnecessary household items until the very last minute.

Everyone who has ever moved resists the change taking place and only pack away, very reluctantly, certain familiar and treasured belongings at the very end. The excuses are usually “I’m currently using that” or “I might need that tomorrow” as though living without being able to watch a DVD or mash up potatoes sometime in the next seven days is going to rain complete disaster upon their lives.

I had to move my girlfriend’s apartment this past weekend. Well, I say “this weekend” but it was a move that extended over the course of about two weeks of putting stuff in to boxes. She is moving to a much smaller place and so a lot of time was spent deciding what could go in to storage, what could be donated/given away and what was essential to her life.

Having moved myself and helped several friends to move over the years it was fortunately one of the easier moves I have done. I have not done any moved in my life that quite compares to the disaster of moving our entire office of video game developers in 2008. Still the move was somewhat stressful given that like me, we both love books and cooking.

There was a multitude of books that required boxing and an extensive range of kitchen utensils and kitchenware that needed to be carefully wrapped in bubble pack and stowed away in boxes. Dozens of unique and one-off pieces of artwork also had to be carefully wrapped and packed ready for moving too.

1. Boxes Everywhere!

The easiest way I have found to date of packing items to go to a local office supply store and purchase the letter/legal filing boxes, usually sold in packs of six, folded flat for easy transport, for about $10. The boxes are really durable, have separate lids and stack up to about eight high before becoming dangerous.

I started using this style of box decades ago for moving my belongings around the world from Britain to Belgium to Germany and then to the USA. Since that time U-Haul, Public Storage and a few other places in the USA have finally seen the light and started to sell moving supplies which include a variety of box sizes including the smaller one cubic foot boxes ideal for books and other heavy items

The primary features I like about the letter/legal filing boxes is that they are very rigid, it is difficult to pack in too many items to make the box too heavy to lift – a box of books weighs no more than 45lbs – and you can also buy the double size boxes for kitchen items, clothing, and other odd sized items.

Buying these boxes – though somewhat expensive – sure beats scrounging up disused boxes from your local grocery store or supermarket. The filing boxes also come in handy for storing casual use items such as tools, spare computer parts or seasonal clothing. Later moves just reuse the boxes over again.

I still own filing boxes I have used through seven or eight moves over 15 years later.

Oversized items are always a problem so a quick trip to my local Home Depot fixed that problem. I avoid the larger boxes generally because they are so damned difficult to pick up and move, have a habit of crushing under their own weight and also crush anything underneath them.

Being aware of the structural limitations of the larger boxes helps but someone always insists on filling an eight cubic feet box full of books – which then makes the box weigh around 250lb and impossible to move.

I do not buy many of the oversized boxes so that they become a limited resource and are strangely “used more wisely” for actually packing the randomly shaped and over-sized items rather than being used casually for household items that weigh the equivalent of an adult corpse. Did you know you can get an adult corpse in to one of the medium sized boxes sold at Home Depot?

It goes without saying that even personally supervising and packing up items this still was not the most optimal move I have ever made. My girlfriend could not put away certain items whilst being used. Now there are items that are essential or have to be kept out to the very last minute that do not have a “hotel equivalent” which I will explain about in a minute. The juicer, the espresso machine, the crepe pan, the wok, the World of Warcraft computer, all of these items have to remain available for use until the last few hours before the truck loading actually takes place.

There are always going to be certain items that will need to be kept out and it takes a will power of steel to stop using certain items even for a day or two. I believe this dependence on the items comes from the stressful situation created whereby the personal space of the person or people that are moving is severely disrupted and so the items lend a comfort and familiarity to the situation.

The optimal way that I have found to move, apart from spending several thousand dollars to have someone else do it completely for you, is to treat the move like being at a hotel for a week or so. A messy, disruptive hotel to be sure, but an hotel stay none the less.

I take my travel luggage, two suitcases and an overnight hold-all and fill them with whatever items I would need if I was travelling to a conference; clothing of course, toothbrush, razor, shampoo, hair products, laptop computer, phone charger, and sundry other items that I rely on on a daily basis. I also pack up the emergency medical kit in to the suitcase as I know that minor accidents, cuts and scrapes are going to happen when moving furniture, carrying boxes, taking down shelves, etc.

I take a half dozen boxes and mark them very specifically in very bright colours, with very large writing, that these are “urgent and important” boxes. These boxes I fill with items that will be needed in the first day or two of moving in to the new location. In to these boxes I put tea bags, fresh coffee, medication, a couple of days of pet food, basic cooking utensils, power supplies for electronics, screws and nuts and bolts and other small fixtures and fittings taken out of furniture such as the futon, the computer desks and the book cases as I dismantle a particular item.

At U-Haul I can purchase packing tape in various colours. Each coloured roll of packing tape has a room name repeatedly printed along it, such as “Kitchen,” Living Room” or “Master Bedroom.” These rolls of packing tape are really useful for identifying individual boxes.

I have been creative in the past and visited an art and crafts store to pick up brightly coloured rolls of tape in varying hues. These coloured rolls of tape also serve the same purpose for indicating important boxes; boxes of clothes, boxes containing items for the pets, boxes containing cables and parts for the computer workstation or the all important box of tools and emergency medical kit.

2. The Obligatory Box of Tools

In to one very dedicated box I put tools for reassembling furniture. My tool box consists of my Leatherman multi-tools – a few of these, they are always in demand and I am always temporarily misplacing them in a move – two cordless drills so there is no fighting over the drill, spare cordless drill batteries, the cordless drill battery charger, a flashlight, manual screwdrivers, adjustable wrenches, zip ties and Velcro cable ties.

You would not believe how many times I have needed a couple of zip ties when taking down electrical items or setting up electrical appliances and not have cables trailing everywhere. Just wrapping up trailing cables with a zip tie can remove a huge amount of clutter and stress when I have tripped over the stupid cables one too many times. I can always go back later and tidy up the job when I have the time and energy. Zip ties cost a penny each and in the grand scheme of the move, using a hundred zip ties to wrap up power cords before moving equipment or wrapping up all the different cables before placing them in a box is not going to break the bank.

3. Transfer My (Digital) Work

I transfer all of the work I am currently developing on my workstation that I know I will need in the next two weeks to my multiple laptops; the work usually does consist of several hundred gigabytes of data. The easiest way I have found to move this work, if the data is not stored in version control such as Perforce, is to use a small form factor external hard drive that can hold my entire working directory of my main workstation. These hard drives are now available in 500gb capacities for a couple of hundred dollars and can really make carrying your work around utterly trivial.

With most of the main applications I use on my workstation also installed on my laptops I can continue work – even if the screen is smaller, the CPU less powerful and the hard drive slower. Even if my home is in complete disruption I can still get work done.

Being able to continue to work through a massively disruptive life event is important if you have clients that you need to stay in contact with and give regular updates too, are a writer whose day to day activities involve putting words on paper or screen, or someone who manages a team of people spread out all around the world. I am all of these things and so I need to have daily access to my email, contacts address book and several hundred gigabytes of contracts and other documents that I need to refer too.

There is a bonus in it too, the act of doing work, if you are an entrepreneurial workaholic like I am, provides an outlet that is not packing or unpacking boxes. I can sit on the couch (if I can find it under all of the boxes) and just bang out a few thousand words ignoring the clutter all around me and feel that I achieved something worthwhile.

4. Emergency Entertainment

When I am moving I rip as many DVD movies to my laptop as I can fit on it. I know I am going to get stuck at least one or more nights where there is no viable entertainment. On my laptop I can store few dozen DVD’s and not even notice the space they take up.

When the video game consoles are not set up, there is no high speed internet available, I cannot find a Wi-Fi hotspot, electricity supply is dubious and no matter how hard I try I cannot find either my ebook reader or my box of books for reading at least on my laptop I will have a couple of movies I can watch after a long day of moving boxes from point A to point B.

5. Live For A Week, Pack Up The Rest

I have three cats who need to be fed and medicated regularly. What I do not need to do is keep three months of cat food on hand for them for the few weeks that I am moving. I might keep three separate bags of dry cat food and a hundred small cans of Fancy Feast in the food storage closet but I do not need them for the week of the move.

I can pack away the majority of the cat food in to moving boxes and put the amount, plus a little more, in to a small suitcase specifically set aside for the cats. Yes, I know, I am slightly mad; my cats have their own travel luggage.

Either I keep enough dried cat food stored in re-sealable kitchen food bags or I purchase smaller packages of their regular dry food from the supermarket specifically for the move.

Other people I have spoken to have complained about the prohibitive cost of purchasing smaller bags but when you put the few extra dollars for a small bag of cat food, which is going to get all used up anyway, up against the total cost of moving house, which usually runs in to the several hundred dollars if you do it yourself or several thousand if you have someone else do it for you, then the cost of two or three 4lb bags of cat food is neither here nor there.

I also do not need access to every pot, pan, cooking utensil, eating utensil, plate, cup or glass that I posses either. During the packing and moving its doubtful I am going to be spending much time in the kitchen so why even bother worrying about the priorities of when they will be packed up.

I switch over to a limited set of cooking utensils and pans, keep the wok handy for doing a quick stir fry, and use disposable cups, plates and eating utensils. When I am done the last of the disposable products can be used at the new home until everything is properly unpacked. Left over disposable products can be tossed out or donated to someone else who is moving.

I always pack a box of books I might want to read. I always get an itch to catch up on my programming, technology or business books that I have not gotten to yet when I am travelling or moving.

I use a SONY e-book reader for fiction books and I have several hundred books on there now so I do not really have to worry about fiction but the larger format technical books and business books I still get in paperback and hard back that I need to review.

One of the things I know I am going to be, with all of the disruption, is bored as the game consoles get packed away, the DVD player, the LCD TV, the main computer workstation, and any other entertainment devices.

Many of us do not move very many times in our lives. Moving just requires a little planning and ensuring we do not stick to our daily habits. It is the one time we should not stick to any of our habits at all.

Moving can be stressful but it can also be done exceptionally easy if you understand some of the techniques involved. Having moved quite a bit in my working career I have managed to remove many of the bad habits that most of my friends still retain when they move. I am not saying all of my home moves have gone smoothly, but I have yet to have even a minor disaster so far and rarely do I manage to damage or break anything in a move.

Except for that one time the cat got stuck at the front of the moving truck and I had to unload everything to find him.