Moving across town is the most common move, and it can be quite easy. A bit of organization can save you a lot of money, time and hard labor. It can also make the move a lot more fun, and you can even use self storage as a “secret weapon” against disorganization. The fact is, moving across town can be a great opportunity to really improve your quality of life and your peace of mind.

Getting set up for a move across town

A combination of scheduling and basic tricks will get your move over almost before you know it’s happening.

Note: Your time frame for moving in starts from the day you get the key. At this point you can get quite a lot of things done before the big move.

Start with your scheduling:

• Give yourself a time frame of about a month at least to get set up before your move.
• Categorize your move into these areas:
• The heavy stuff that needs to be moved when you move. This can stay.
• The heavy stuff that may not be needed in the new place, or may be suitable for storage.
• Domestic materials (kitchen and bathroom, etc.)
• Personal tools like kids toys, sporting materials, gardening and home tools, etc.
• Appliances and electronics
• The easy to move and special materials that you can move simply with your own car or even as hand luggage. Anything like bric a brac, family heirlooms, clothes, the lightweight things that take up a lot of space during a move and seem to take to forever to find after you’ve moved.

These categories help you organize your move simply and keep these materials together for better organization.

Moving by stages

Start packing all the easy to move stuff first. Move that in the minute you’ve got the keys to the new place and have a chance to run it over there. This saves a lot more space for the actual move as well, and simplifies unloading.

Storage containers can be used for the domestic materials. Get a few big containers, preferably good strong heavy duty type, and progressively pack the domestic materials and personal tools.

Any difficult pieces that can’t be immediately placed in the new home should be put in storage until you’ve got things sorted out. This is actually quite cheap, and much easier to live with than the sort of tangle it’s possible to create trying to place pieces of furniture and other large objects right in the middle of moving.

Domestic materials and useful things like the bathroom and bedroom stuff should be packed separately (preferably in their own storage containers) so you can find them easily when you make the move.

The heavy furniture and other causes of major hard labor should be organized the day before movement into groups. That will help the movers handle them and organize loading.

Moving across town isn’t difficult. It’s as easy as you can make it for yourself.