Moving home is easy. Pack your belongings, pick a moving company, settle stuff in your new home and you are done. Sound good, right? However, this is far from being the reality. Moving homes is not just transporting goods from one house to another. It involves a lot of things all integrated into a single chain. If one thing goes wrong, the whole process might get in jeopardy. Therefore, when packing and moving avoid these five mistakes and save yourself from unnecessary hassle and trouble:

Not having a clear packing strategy

Packing things randomly as and when you wish will only result in wasted time and building tension. Don’t even attempt to make this deadly mistake. Instead, have a clear packing strategy.

Create a day-by-day calendar listing things you need to pack each day until the moving day. Always begin packing with things you least need and eventually move to packing essentials such as the toiletries and the kitchen essentials.

You might also consider packing things room-by-room starting from the guest room, living room and finally kitchen and bathroom

All your packing jobs should be highly customised and prioritised depending on your specific relocation needs. Once your packing calendar is ready, stick to it and you will be amazed to realize how the dreaded job of packing and moving turn into a joyride.

Thinking you can do it all at the last minute

One of the major mistakes people make is to believe they have more time to do things than they actually have. If you have never moved before, you might not know how long it sometimes takes to pack your belongings.

Until you have a sudden or unplanned move, you must plan and organize your move to avoid last minute panic. A good idea is to work backwards.

First of all, determine your moving out date, whether it is the end of your rental period, joining date for your new job or just possession of your new house.

Once you have your moving out date finalised, count back to 6-8 weeks. You will need all this time to cancel connections, inform vendors, settle bills, sort out your belongings, hiring movers, and of course for packing.

When you plan things way ahead, you won’t be panicking if a sudden unplanned task come over

Not having enough packing supplies

One of the most common errors people make when getting ready to move out is not obtaining enough packing supplies.

Just think of all the anxiousness and additional work you might need to go through to fit everything you have in the limited packing supplies. And if that is not possible you might have to run around last minute to get hold of extra packing materials needed to pack your possessions.

Therefore, it is always better to have some additional packing supplies that you will need to avoid last minute inconvenience. Besides purchasing moving boxes of different size, don’t forget to have enough bubble wrap, packing paper and packing tape.

Not labelling the boxes

So you believe you have an infallible visual memory and you know exactly which box contains what. You have already marked the boxes in your head and you don’t need to label them anymore.

A big mistake! The situation in the new home will be vastly different from that of your current home.

The enormous piles of non-labelled boxes added with all the stress of loading, unloading and moving can easily confuse even the most observant person.

Labeling the boxes correctly using a marker will not only make it easy for you to identify your belongings but it will always help the moving company to identify fragile items or any other goods that need special care while loading on the moving truck.

Packing virtually everything in the same van

This is one of the most common mistakes that people make while moving house. They pack almost everything into the movers and packers vehicle.

Instead of stuffing everything in one large vehicle, you may consider carrying the smaller, fragile items via your own car. This not only helps increasing space for larger goods such as furniture but also ensures safety for your delicate/safe items.

 

This article was originally published on www.thehindu.com