We all have experience moving. Most of us have moved several times in our lives, and we’re familiar with the basic process. But the moving process becomes much more challenging when you have a massive move on your hands. For example, you might have a luxury property filled with miscellaneous items or you might be moving an entire business from one commercial property to another.
What are the best strategies for handling one of these large moves?
Avoid Getting Overwhelmed
It’s easier said than done, but you need to have a proactive strategy to avoid getting overwhelmed. If you try to focus on everything at once, or if you allow yourself to become stupefied at the amount of work that needs to be done, it’s going to make matters more difficult to handle. It’s important to keep perspective and take things one step at a time if you want to continue making progress without freaking yourself out.
Hire Professionals to Help
You may be perfectly capable of handling a large move by yourself, with your family, or with other people in your business, but the move is going to be much smoother if you hire professionals to help. Depending on your budget and the size of your move, you should probably hire movers and you may benefit from other professionals, such as moving coordinators.
Create a Master Plan
No matter what, you should take the time to create a master plan for your move. Elements include things like:
- Main items. What are the biggest and most problematic objects that you have to move? What do you suppose is the total quantity of items you have to move? How many trips is it going to take and what is the size of the vehicle you’ll need for the process? You don’t need a full inventory of every little object you want to move, especially since this may change in the near future anyway. However, you should have a high-level vision of the items you need to move.
- Timeline. You also need a timeline in place, so you can avoid missing any important deadlines and stay on track with your moving progress. You can start with a generic template for a moving timeline, but you’ll likely need to make some adjustments. When do you need to book movers? When do you need to finish packing? When is your moving date and how likely are you to be fully prepared for it?
- Logistics. Your moving plan should also have details related to logistics. Are you going to hire professional movers? Are you going to move things yourself? Are you going to do both?
- Options to help. What other options do you have for help? Are your friends, family members, coworkers, or other contacts available to pitch in at various steps of this process?
Start as Early as Possible
The bigger the move, the more important it is to start early. Starting early gives you more time to plan, more time to pack, and allows you to benefit from reduced stress. If you can start a few months in advance, you should have plenty of time to prepare your space for the move, book all the professional services you need, and take your time with logistics.
Declutter as Much as You Can
Assuming you were able to start early, take the time to declutter your space as much as possible. Go room by room to make things more manageable, and start weeding out anything that you don’t need. Depending on what you find, you may be able to sell it, donate it, reuse it, or recycle/discard it. The fewer things you have, the less you’ll have to move. As an added bonus, this is an opportunity to organize the posessions that remain.
Manage Your Emotions
You should also have a plan to manage your stress and emotions. This is a challenging endeavor that you shouldn’t underestimate.
- Take breaks. Throughout the process, make sure you take breaks for yourself. This is especially important during the physically intensive portions of the move.
- Prioritize self-care. A large move is very time-consuming, but you need to make time for self-care. You need to get ample sleep, stay hydrated, eat plenty of food, and make time to do things that you genuinely enjoy as well.
- Zoom out. It’s easy to get bogged down with minutiae, but you can maintain a better perspective by zooming out. In a few months, this will all be a memory.
- Support each other. If you’re moving as part of a team or group, make sure you show mutual support.
Take Your Time Settling In
After your move is complete, consider taking your time settling in if you have that opportunity. There’s no reason to rush and stress yourself out after accomplishing such a herculean task.
