4 Tips for Packing Early and Pacing Your Move

Packing is the most time consuming part of your move. While there are some who say packing too early can lead to frustration, if you pack smart and early, you could have the smoothest move yet.

1. Start packing as soon as you know you're moving

Your move officially starts when you start to pack that first box. Early packing gets you in the mindset of de-cluttering, paring down your belongings, and gives you plenty of time to calmly decide what you want to take with you to your new home. A couple of months before your move date is not too early to start packing. In fact, it's never too early to start packing!

Set up a few moving boxes in each room of your house with labeling, wrapping, and color-coding supplies nearby. Pace yourself by packing a box or two every night, so the task isn't too overwhelming.

2. Pack in order of increasing use

Start by packing the items that you rarely use: The coffee server that you use once a year and the punch bowl that you never use. Don't be surprised if some of these items never make it into a packing box at all, but instead get put into the donation pile. In this first packing round, also pack:

• Out-of-season clothing and outerwear
• Holiday decorations
• Seasonal tools and garage items
• Basement storage, attic storage, memorabilia, financial papers not needed for house purchase and sale
• Extra blankets and bedding
• Guest room and rooms that are little used
• Anything else you're sure you won't need to use before your move

As you approach Moving Day, continue to pack items that you won't be using. By the week before your move, you should have everything packed except for the things you would take if you were going on a week-long vacation, plus some dishes and a few cooking supplies.

3. Use the Top Open Box rule

Keep your boxes organized so that all your same-room boxes are stacked together. As you pack available items, fill a box, tape it shut, label it, and then put a new, empty box on top of the stack. Now you're ready for the next packed box.

While you're at it, set up your suitcases and boxes of things you'll be moving yourself - the movers' Do Not Move pile. As you continue to pack boxes, what's left can be put into your suitcases.

4. Pace yourself

As tempting as it seems to take care of each task all at once, it's more efficient and less exhausting to handle your move in small chunks, especially when dealing with the things you've decided not to pack. Schedule more than one trip to a donation center, to friends' houses, and to the large trash drop-off, to deliver those things you've decided not to move. Keeping up with packing and purging as you go will keep the work from building up to an annoying and exhausting crescendo.

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If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.