How to Move

Meaning of Life List: Lessons from a migratory life

Start by throwing everything away. Tchotchkes that reproduce like tribbles on any available counterspace. Rarely worn clothes stuffed in closets that look like mannequin graveyards. Cords with uncertain plugs that inhabit the snake pit formerly known as the junk drawer. Make three piles: i) garbage; ii) donation; iii) maybe throwaway.

Put the “maybe throwaway” pile in storage (along with anything else you think you “might need later”). Later, throw it all away. Once, we had movers load all the crap in our storage unit into a 26-foot moving truck and take it straight to the dump. Luckily, we took one final look and retrieved our framed college diplomas. We never missed the rest of it.

Better yet, don’t buy it in the first place. Buying random crap – placing crap decoratively on shelves, getting bored with crap, organizing crap in clear plastic boxes, cramming the boxes filled with crap into storage, periodically sorting the boxes of crap and agonizing about whether to keep the crap or throw it away – is a black hole of money and energy. Instead, take a garbage bag with you whenever you feel the urge to shop and immediately throw the crap away after buying it. Or don’t buy the crap in the first place.

Schedule movers. There is a reason that movers are burly men in back braces wielding industrial strength trolleys. Unless you can recruit three of your son’s best friends from a Big 10 football team, spend the money on movers. If someone else is paying, hire expensive movers who will also do your packing. Note that they will pack indiscriminately. We once had movers pack unwashed breakfast bowls which became permanently encrusted with oatmeal residue.

Do all the laundry. Weeks in advance, wash bedding, coats, pillows, rugs, curtains, things that haven’t been washed in years. No one needs microbes festering in boxes.

Buy more packing supplies than you think you need. There is nothing more frustrating than running out of packing tape. Get mostly small boxes, some medium and a few large. Wardrobe boxes are worth it if you put hanging clothes directly in them and stuff bedding into the bottoms. Yes, you wish you had saved the all the bubble tape from countless Amazon packages. Yes, bubble tape is ludicrously expensive. Yes, you need multiple rolls of it.

Pack a to-go suitcase. Before you begin packing, have everyone in the household pack their suitcase with enough clothes for at least a week. Kick out anyone not involved in packing out of the house with their suitcases.

Pack in a compressed time frame. Clear several days in your calendar, depending on how big your place is, how many people are packing, and how frenzied you can be under pressure. Put on exercise clothes. Fill a water bottle. Load an EDM playlist. Eat lots of snacks. Pack maniacally until you are done. Alternatively, live in chaos amidst towers of half-packed boxes for a month.

Use a hip-pack. Stock it with packing tools: packing tape, blue painters’ tape, a black Sharpie, brightly colored stickies, work gloves, a box cutter, and your phone. Put your tools back in your super sexy hip-pack every time you use them otherwise you will spend half your time looking for the effing box cutter.

Implement a labeling scheme. The simplest method is to label the box with the room or location it should be moved in to. For cardboard boxes, write directly with a Sharpie. For everything else, label with painters’ tape and a Sharpie. Label both a long and short side of the box so the label can be more easily viewed in the chaos of moving back in. The more complicated method is to number the boxes and create a manifest. This is only necessary if the moving company insists on it for insurance purposes as you will almost immediately lose track of everything.

Go room by room. Finish everything in one room or section of the house before you go to the next. When you are done packing the obvious stuff, sweep the room for any possessions desperately attempting to escape the purge in upper shelves of closets and under the beds. Put a sticky on the door to designate it as finished so you don’t keep rechecking when an hour later you forget what you have done.

Resign yourself to the 2am factor. You will end up at 2am the night before move-out day deliriously doing the most unpleasant task on your list: removing the rotten planters full of dead plants and dirt in the backyard; cleaning grimy lawn-mowing equipment out of a dingy storage shed; dismantling cheap modular furniture that you should have thrown away. There is nothing you can do about this. Even with the best organization, it always happens.

Schedule cleaners and garbage removal. Pay the movers a little extra to make a dump run. Hire cleaners so you can walk away after move-out day without worrying about fungi growing in the fridge.

Be the move-in traffic controller. On move-in day, stand at the point of greatest visibility – usually between the entrance and the moving truck. Many large men will immediately start running back and forth with precarious piles of boxes and furniture. You will need to interpret quickly your own ineligible Sharpie scrawl on the sides of the boxes and make snap decisions about what goes where, yelling instructions at the large men. This will go on for hours and you can’t move or rest otherwise your possessions will end up in a large amorphous pile in the living room.

Offer lunch to your movers. They will likely want the cheapest fast food and sugary sodas that you would never dream of buying. They will be incredibly grateful for the courtesy. Also, tip them generously. These people have been carrying your life’s belongings on their backs for hours.

Pre-assign spots for everything. It is overwhelming to decide where you want to put something when you are staring at it alongside thousands of other random objects. Before move-in day, assign places for large items with painters’ tape. Designate spots in rooms for piles of boxes that are away from closets, doors and furniture. Before unpacking, use sticky notes to assign objects to drawers and shelves.

Designate a special tools box. On move-out day, pack your moving tools in one of the last boxes in the truck, along with anything needed to assemble furniture, install electronics or hang pictures. Label the box garishly on all sides. On move-in day, find the box as soon as possible and place it on the most prominent counter. Alternatively, spend weeks looking for the bolts for your bed frame.

Reverse the process. Unpack in a compressed time frame. Wear your sexy hip-pack with swagger. Go room by room. As you are unpacking, throw even more things away. You will be so sick of moving crap around that your judgement about what deserves to be in your house will be even more refined.

Persevere through desperation. The moment of maximum chaos — oppressed by half-empty boxes, infested by kitchen gadgets, confounded by pot lids — is the turning point of moving in. Force yourself to empty all boxes and put stuff somewhere (your pre-assignment system having failed hours before). Never leave still-packed boxes lying around your house – put them in storage and then throw them away.

Make your home beautiful. Hang your beloved art and pictures. Place the few adored objects that have survived the purge on the mantel. Arrange your closet with the clothes you wear all the time. Buy a few pieces of new furniture that suit your new uncluttered home.

Accept that moving is one of the most disruptive and miserable tasks of life. Be grateful that it clears out the detritus of our lives, rewires our daily patterns, and reduces the burden of possession to what is necessary, meaningful and beautiful.