Along with choosing the right movers and other key steps, determining how you’re going to pack your home up is one of the first things you want to focus on. This includes deciding what you’re going to hold back on packing until the very end, to make sure that you don’t have to sort through different boxes to look for one essential item right before putting things on the truck. Here’s how to sort out what you should wait on.
One way to go about doing this is trying to focus on the contents of different rooms when determining what you should pack last. Generally, this entails looking at rooms you use the most on a regular basis. For example, everyone will need a bathroom until they completely vacate their homes, so you want to try and save packing that room until later in the process. The same applies to where you are going to sleep.
Another concept that you want to keep in mind is trying to save the easier rooms for last when packing. For the early stages of packing, focus on some of the more difficult areas instead, like storage areas. The reason for this is by the end of packing, even if things go well, you’re likely to be drained and frustrated. Finding what takes the least work and doing this at the end saves you a bit of energy.
So, keeping these two principles in consideration, what are the individual items you should save for the end? Bathroom items and toiletries you use daily are a good start. You should also make sure that you leave any prescription medication out. The silver lining here is that these items are generally small, so at the very end, it won’t take you long to pack things quickly.
The kitchen is an example of how you may need to pack some things later and some things earlier in a given room. Because some items are fragile, you don’t want to save them until the end. At the same time, you’ll need some essentials to prepare food. A good way to do this is split things down the middle, packing up what you can but leaving out things like plastic utensils/dishware, non-perishable food, or can openers. There are also some items that may be subjectively essential depending on your household, like items for dogs and children, phone chargers and electronics, medications, books, or personal documents. A good compromise here is creating an essentials box that will be easily accessible at any time during the packing process. We call this the “open first” box to make it easy to identify.
Planning out what you need to pack and when requires a lot of foresight and preparation. In some cases, this isn’t always possible, though. You may need to move in a hurry, or outside issues keep you from spending the time you wanted to planning leading up to a move. A third-party service is the ideal method to still be able to move smoothly. At Friend Of The Family, we provide a suite of options to help make the process of moving preparation less difficult and stressful. This can include guidance on how to go about packing for the least stress during a move.