I hate moving.

So it’s been a week since I have fully moved into my new home. I went from living in a 2,600 sq. ft detached house, to a 1,400 sq. ft townhouse. Sad little upside? I get to live right next to my parents. Is that weird? Probably – but it means I get to spend more time with my folks, help them out and also score a free meal or two every so often. 😉

While I sit here on my computer writing this, surrounded by unopened and partially empties boxes – I decided to write a little blurb about productivity. Ironic, I know.

Be honest, who actually likes moving? and by moving, I mean having to pack up your entire life, find a box and a place for every single knick-knack, document and object you own, carefully packing away dishes and breakable object, trying to prioritize what to pack first as to not leave yourself unable to even find a stick of deodorant for moving day… and then transporting all of your belongings from A to B, and undoing all of the packing you did. It’s honestly the worst. I’m getting frustrated even typing about it.

I’ve compiled a list of ways to help you during this horrendously tedious and frustrating process, so I hope they come in handy.

• 1. Always make sure you know where all of your important documents are and pack them in a place you can easily access. Personally, I placed all of my important-paper documents into large plastic freezer ziploc bags, and placed it all into a red plastic tote. Why red? because every other tote bin I used was blue, and everything else was in cardboard boxes. Nothing is worse than having something come up and needing to access important documents that you can’t for the life of you find.
• 2. Form a game plan – I know, this sounds pretty basic right? but proper planning and pre-work will save you the headache, trust me. Do a quick scope of all the stuff you are moving and determine if you can comfortably move it on you own with help – or if you should put money aside for a full-on moving company. If you had similar amount of furniture that I had at my previous place, you’d be easily looking at $1,000.00 – where as renting a moving truck and recruiting some friends and family to help, cost me only $250.00. If you plan on renting a truck, make sure you reserve one days in advance and make sure you have a credit card available to put a $500-1,000 deposit on and have someone available who is comfortable to drive it. (If you can do it yourself, then awesome! I personally convinced my dad to do it for me. Probably saved me from having to awkwardly explain why I crashed it into a building or something.)
• 3. Mark your boxes! this is something I do every single time I move. I either used coloured dot-stickers or just a handy lil’ sharpie. I number my boxes and bags from 1-3. 1 being most important, 3 being least. (or you can skip that and just use clear bins.) For example, when I pack up my massive stock pile of makeup and beauty products, there are some things I can live without for a while, and some things I absolute cannot. To save me from having to savagely rip through every box to find that one mascara I can’t go without, I just put a simple 1. on my box, with a brief written description of the boxes contents. This also works for clothing, household products, dishes and so on. In an ideal world, we would all love to be fully unpacked and set up on day 1 of moving in, but.. reality is, that never happens.
• 4. If you have access to your new home prior to moving date, take full advantage of it! use that as an opportunity to purchase some organizers and shelving. I made sure that the week before we moved in, I had hangers in every closet, shoe organizers, I had organizational tiers in the cupboards, built the cabinet / microwave stand for the kitchen, the kitchen cart and pots and pan holders. I also took this opportunity to do a walk-through of the house and take pictures of every single room and section of the house so that I could keep track of any current damage prior to moving my belongings in. I also used this time wisely to install any floating shelves, replace light bulbs, hang curtain rods and window coverings and set aside storage space. Benefits of all that pre-work? You can move in, and everything has a home when you unpack.
• 5. Don’t leave anything last minute!
• 6. Putting together a “Moving kit” is also very handy. A moving kit should include: Shower products, deodorant, 1 full clean outfit, tooth paste, tooth brush, any needed medications and anything that would be important or potentially needed upon first day of moving in to your new home. Also, don’t you dare forget about toilet paper! Or you’ll have more than a a moving-mess on your hands…. literally.
• 7. LISTS! One thing I absolutely love and can’t live without, is list-making and label makers. Making an inventory list is not only practical, but can also help you keep track of your belongings if you say… hire some questionable help or a random moving company. You can never be too careful. Consider even taking the time to produce a quick spread sheet of electronics and valuables in case something happens to go missing.
• 8. Protect your valuables – Make sure you have ample amounts of sheets, blankets, towels and news paper to help protect your belongings. Imagine this – You unload the moving truck only to find your glass top table is now shattered, your brand new full length mirror is cracked and so is your 65″ 4K tv. Make sure you wake up extra early on moving day and have your valuable belongings protected with Styrofoam, blankets and sheets. Also, some trucks are just really.. dirty. It doesn’t hurt to have some tarps / drop sheets available to lay down on the floor of the truck to prevent any gunk from getting on your furniture.
• 9. Whatever you do, keep your clothing/fabric items that are packed in garbage bags – away from your ACTUAL garbage. Last thing you want is to unpack a bag of trash and realize you donated your Louis Vuitton track suit and hand bags to the city dump. (Who are we? Jeffree Star?)
• 10. Pet sitting! If you have any pets, I strongly recommend either finding a reputable pet sitter, a super nice friend or perhaps drop them off at a near-by pet daycare for the day. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t feel like leaving our Aussie shepherd pup locked in a crate all day to lose her shit while we are trampling about. Fortunately, my mom (who I now live next door to) took her for the day, which was a tremendous help. If you don’t have any friends who can pet sit for you, then day care’s are a terrific alternative (mainly for cats and dogs.) plus your lil’ fur baby gets snacks, attention and socialization for the day!
• 11. Lastly, treat your movers well and relax. This is especially crucial if you have movers working on hot or cold days. If it’s hot out? have cold beverages / ample amounts of water available, if it’s cold – perhaps offer a hot beverage. Same goes to your family and pals who help! I think it’s pretty customary to order food for your movers and provide beer (or any other beverage.) and most importantly – REMAIN CALM. Keep focused, move everything in that you can – if you followed the previous steps, you shouldn’t have too much to stress about but if things go wrong, just slow down, relax and take it easy. Everything will work out, moving days are stressful for everyone. (Having an emergency stash of sadness-chocolate also helps. 😉 )

I hope these tips helped you out even a little bit, even if majority of them seem straight forward.

For now – I am going to go take my own advice and chip away at the last few remaining boxes and bags of clothing – hang in there everyone! So close to victory. :’)

xo