Any Extreme Assistant with any experience has moved a household. It should be ranked in the 10 most stressful experiences because is not for the faint of heart. But it can be made easy…yes I said easy…with detailed organization.
Simple steps can help you be clear with expectations and the final results. Here’s how I start:
- Know what is going, staying, being donated or sold.
- Photograph each item as such (going, staying, donate, sell) and if possible, move all sold or donated items out of the house before the move.
- Walk the new property and know what the principal calls each room. This is very important for your move.
- Before packing, make sure items are tagged to those rooms.
- Make sure no box leaves until it is marked for the appropriate rooms. (You have no idea how much easier this makes the move-in process.)
- Upon move-in make sure each box goes into the appropriate room before anything gets unpacked. Before the movers leave make sure they finish the job correctly so you’re not lugging boxes around. (You’d be surprised how many boxes are still left in the wrong rooms.)
Now, there are even more detailed ways of doing this, depending how Type A your principal is. For example, I have photographed each cabinet (before packing) and had each box contain that cabinet ONLY. I printed the photos out so on move-in, those unpacking knew exactly what stayed together. You use more boxes but it guaranteed that items went back exactly as they were before.
What was your best move? Let me know about it. And leave me comments and questions that I will be happy to answer. Until then–