How to Move Efficiently With The Best Tips

Organizing and planning can teach anyone how to move efficiently. However, people get scared by these tasks since they require lots of time, patience, and dedication. While that may be true, they also don’t have to be so complex. With our tips, they’ll even seem logical and easy to use whenever a significant change happens.

How to Move Efficiently – Packing, Organization, and Moving Tips to Remember for Life

The questions like: “How do you organize a move?”, “When should you start packing to move?” and alike are some of the most searched questions online. Here, you can learn a bit more since it’s essential to have a well-rounded relocation plan from start to finish.

Whether you call an international mover to help you or not, there are things you must do on your own before the day for relocation services come. These are the things you should learn about and remember for any future relocation endeavors you might have.

In summary, here’s what you need to know about relocating efficiently:

  • How to organize your tasks and do each on time,
  • How to vet interstate and international movers the right way,
  • What to pack,
  • Where to find packaging materials and which ones to use,
  • How to load a relocation truck properly,
  • To keep track of your budget throughout the move,
  • Who to notify about relocating and who to ask for help.

Organizing Your Move Is Essential Before You Pack and Move, so Here’s How

As mentioned, being organized is crucial but can also be boring. Some people feel a lack of specific planning talents or feel it wastes time. Still, you can be organized and not spend hours on unnecessary things. Here’s how.

For example, if you’ve booked international moving services, chances are they’ll keep a calendar of what needs to be done before relocation day. Guide yourself by their schedule; all the effort that should come from you is jotting down designated dates in your phone calendar.

It can be that easy. However, if you feel there’s more you need to do and don’t rely only on movers’ help, you can do other stuff to help you stay in control of the process.

Make a Moving Calendar Where You’ll Write Down All Your Tasks

The first thing to do is make a timeline or a calendar of relocation events. As soon as you decide to move, you must understand that you won’t be able to do it adequately for at least another month. Having actual visual reminders of your obligations during this period will keep you from going insane in all the rush.

If you’re relocating with other people, get a whiteboard calendar (which can be found for cheap in stores) or download and print relocation guides, hang them up on the fridge or somewhere visible, and assign each person a task and due date.

Map Out the Easiest Way to Reach Your New Home

Another thing people may forget to put on their relocation to-do list is figuring out how to get to their new home the easiest and most efficiently. Sure, GPS now exists, and life is easier because of it, but you’d still be winging it.

Use an online map to get to know the area. You can mark some outstanding buildings nearby to know where you are upon arrival. If moving overseas, prepare for different language street signs and learn what each means, so you don’t accidentally break a traffic regulation.

Take the Time to Cancel Utilities and Change Your Address Before You Leave

The most important thing about relocating is canceling all the services in your name and changing your address. While it’s common sense to do so, it’s more practical. New tenants may receive your mail, which could be a nuisance; worse, you could miss important mail.

If you still have electricity bills in your name at the old address, you may end up in outstanding debt for absolutely no reason. Remember your utility bills, and cancel them at least four weeks in advance.

A paper for utility bills on a blue table
Cancel the utilities at your old address, so you do not get in trouble about them later

The Tips on How to Efficiently Pack to Move and Get Boxes and Other Packaging Items

There are plenty of relocation hacks for the most efficient way to pack for moving, but the two vital ones are decluttering the house and packing one room at a time. They’re important because, most of all, they introduce order and efficiency in certain ways.

Getting rid of unwanted items will teach you to prioritize and learn to live without anything you don’t need. Chances are, if it’s been hiding somewhere for a while, it’ll stay hidden when you move it to a new place.

There’s a great hack on what to do with all the items you want to leave behind: sell them. Organize a yard sale and try to turn all your junk into some extra money for relocating or whatever else you need.

If a sale is too much work, donate the good items and consciously recycle the ones in bad shape. Just ensure you mark a day on your calendar in which you’ll deal with everything destined for the trash pile.

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Pack Room by Room and Separate a Few Boxes for Unwanted Items

What order should I pack my house to move? The answer to this depends on how you use your living space. If you spend most of your time in the living area, box it up last. Start with the rooms you can empty right off the bat, and while you’re packaging each, keep boxes labeled “donate,” “trash,” and “sell” nearby.

What is the most efficient way to pack for a move? Decluttering and packaging at once is efficient and effective. All you have to do is start early enough and predict that each room will take a couple of days to clear out. While packing, use a spreadsheet to keep track of the boxes. Label them with colors or detailed descriptions to know what’s inside.

By the end of your packing adventure, ensure that you separate another box full of essentials for the first week in your new home. It should contain stuff like the clothes and shoes you often wear, sheets and pillowcases to set the bed when you arrive, canned and long-lasting foods for sustenance, and toiletries for bathroom use.

Find Free Packing Materials Around the House and in Local Stores

There are ways to obtain relocation essentials without spending a lot of money, and they are scouring for free materials when decluttering and in local stores, supermarkets, and restaurants. This method won’t cost you anything, but it is for the more active types since it requires effort.

You’d be surprised how many free, brand-new, great quality boxes are lying around town. They’re typically only used when stores receive goods and are then dismantled or left out on a pile of other perfectly usable materials.

You’ll need wrapping materials to secure the stuff in the boxes, too. Wrapping is essential when protecting different items in containers and can even be used to pad the bottoms for more fragile things. Professional packaging services typically use bubble wrap and paper, but you’re no Rockefeller – those materials are pricey.

Luckily, newspapers in your home can replace packing paper very easily. Cotton cloths and old tees can take on the role of bubble wrap and protect belongings with an added layer of softness. It’s all about not cramming stuff in the containers and not overfilling them. 

The girl in the video below is one of the more diligent material seekers. She knows how to get a free relocation box and details it. You’ll surely get plenty of ideas from her.

How Can I Make Moving Easier? Essential Relocation Tips for the Lazy and Diligent

The relocation process itself has plenty of complications, which some consider too burdensome, while others welcome the challenge. Even if you’re up for the hard work, you must learn how do you move efficiently before getting on with it.

What’s highly recommended when relocating is hiring professional movers to do the work. You won’t have to box up your entire house, but let them handle furniture and bigger stuff in safe ways. They can even offer vehicle shipping within the same company and resolve the big “what to do with the car” issue.

If you’re more independent, you will have to think of security options. What if something goes wrong at the destination and you can’t move in immediately? Or, even worse, what if something breaks in transit?

With professionals, storage service and relocation insurance will be a part of the standard relocation package. Even the most organized person couldn’t resist this benefit when they hear about it.

Ask People You Love to Help You on Relocation Day

Those who like to make things happen on their own will move the furniture themselves, package everything to the nines, and drive it across the country to their home. This is commendable in many ways, but it borders on silly a bit more.

Even if there are folks who disagree with your reasons to move, asking for their help will mean a lot to both of you. Before relocation day comes, call in favors and ask those who love you if they’d be willing to assist you with packaging and loading furniture into a truck.

Whatever you ask them to do, those who care will do their best to help you and turn a sad occasion into a fun day together. You could consider asking for assistance a weakness, but admitting when you can’t do everything alone is a bigger strength than braving it out.

You’d have to keep everything planned and ready to go, assign tasks to your friends, and give them each a box to take care of. See, there’s a way of staying in charge even when asking for help – you just have to know how to balance the two.

Call Multiple Movers to Get Quotes and Compare Costs

There’s always an option to hire an interstate or international moving company for those who feel lazy or insecure about controlling their move. This is recommended even if you want to be more involved since professional movers provide options that allow customers to stay in control.

However, hiring a company to load your furniture in a truck is not that simple because there can be some mean types out there, like scammers. Again, that’s where you must take control of the move and research each company that gives you a relocation quote.

The easiest way to do that is by checking their USDOT number, which every legal relocation company has to have under the regulations of the FMCSA. If they’re registered, they’re legit. The next thing to pay attention to is how they communicate with you, the reviews on their website, and if they charge extra fees (they shouldn’t).

Do this with multiple companies at once and decide which one gives you the most confidence and fits your schedule and budget.

A woman working with an international mover on transporting cargo
You can ask for relocation assistance and still be in charge of vital parts of the move

Planning Out Your Move in the Right Ways Will Make It Easier Now and Every Next Time

Moving internationally or otherwise is tough, but when you stay on track, organized, and keep a good spirit, you will never lose the benefits of relocating out of your mind. Getting out of your comfort zone will be necessary for a bit, but it’s nothing that won’t serve you in the long run.

Keep a calendar of events, package by room, ask for assistance and remember why you’re doing it. It won’t be easy, but it can be fun once you get the hang of it. For everything else that you can’t figure out or control, call a relocation company and let them do some hard work for you.

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