Start packing early to give yourself plenty of time. You can live without most of your stuff for a little while.

Wear something that will hold your gear; this prevents you from putting it down “somewhere” and losing it. For packing the common gear is tape, scissors, sharpies (black for labels, red for fragile). For unpacking the usual gear is box cutter and bandaids.

Labeling! Label your boxes well. “Hardback SF” is a much better label than “books.” Label five sides of your boxes if you can, so no matter where they’re put, you know what’s inside.

Then label your boxes by the room they should go to in your new place. Do this by printing up lots of labels of room names, and slapping the appropriate label on each box, either on top or on all 5 sides. This regularity means the movers know where to look for the label. Then print a full-page sign with the room name and post it on the room door, so the movers know which room is which. BTW, you don’t have to get every box’s room right. Approximate is better than nothing.

Dish packs (packing boxes designed for dishes & glasses) are far, far quicker than wrapping stuff in paper.

Speaking of paper, use blank newsprint rather than newspaper if you can possibly afford it. If you use newsprint you have you wash everything afterward.

Ideally, use only a few different size of box. They stack and move more easily and with less breakage.

Plan your furniture placement on paper: Draw a floor plan of each room on graph paper (if the room is parquet squares you don’t even have to measure, just count squares), then make cut-outs of your furniture to the same scale.

In your new place, place your rugs FIRST THING. Moving furniture and boxes to place rugs is too damn much work, and unnecessary effort.

If you can, have a staging room or area.

If you’re moving your dressers, pack your clothes by drawer. “Black dresser, top two drawers” tells you exactly where to unpack that box.

I like unpacking bathrooms first; they’re so small they go quickly. Then I do the kitchen because I like to cook and have a lot of kitchen gear.

If a homey feel is important to you, put up your decorations immediately. It’s amazing how much that makes a place feel like home.

I think the couple in the picture is smiling because they had only 3 boxes to unpack.

You can always slowly shift things around, but it gets stuff out of the boxes and boxes out of the house!

Usually when I’m moving it’s very long distances at relatively short notice, and it’s *much* easier to just pack everything and then deal with it when I get there.

I try to label boxes with what’s in them (general labels for things I use a lot, getting more specific as the thing gets used less and less). When I get where I’m going, I unpack boxes as I need them. If I find myself with boxes I don’t want to unpack because I don’t need any of those things, I give the contents away and move on.

It’s a wonderful uncluttering strategy for those of us who have to move quickly or aren’t good about getting rid of things they can see. (I’m sentimentally attached to my “stuff,” so having an excuse to get it out of sight helps a lot in terms of being able to break that attachment.)

I’ll second what Jay said. Don’t allow boxes to be relegated immediately to a basement or closet or garage or other storage area unless that’s where they truly belong (and they’re labeled well so you know exactly what’s in them). If you do, you’ll *never* get around to dealing with the contents.

We thought having no basement in this new house might be a problem, but it has turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

There actually might be a big move for me later this summer, so I got to thinking what unpacking might be like. I might not rush to get everything unpacked as soon as possible, but chances are, if things weren’t unpacked after a couple weeks, I’d have to really ask myself why and reconsider even keeping the still packed stuff.

I am so excited I downsized; it’s been wonderful. The secret it good labels and to unpack everything. It helps to also store things that you don’t use as often, to make moves easier. For example, all of the items in my garage or memory box stuff is stored in Sterilite 66 qt boxes. All have a standard label (8.5 x 11 sheet of paper taped inside the box)on the front that is easy to read with a standard labeling system. For example, it will be room or holiday, then item on the front of the box. That way, if I move, there is no packing needed. I just move the boxes and go.

As for furniture, I think it helps to have a space plan of where all of the large pieces of furniture go so the movers can get it in the right spot. I put a space plan of the furniture layout on each door or large signs on the wall-sofa here, or bed here, etc. so the items got placed in the correct location to save moving time. It also helps if you are downsizing to do a space plan early-then you know what furniture you can take and what furniture you can get rid of.

Enjoy your new home!

It’s amazing how productive I can be when I’m avoiding the taxes.