What to pack first on a moving checklist
Start with the rooms you can live without for a few weeks. Books, off-season clothes, spare bedding, picture frames, the contents of the hall closet: none of it matters between now and the truck, and all of it takes longer to pack than you expect. Work through those first, tape the boxes shut, and stack them against one wall so the rooms you still use stay walkable.
Leave the kitchen and the bathroom until last. You’ll keep cooking and keep showering right up to the end, so packing them early just means unpacking them again. Same with the bed: strip it the morning of the move, not the week before.
Buy the packing supplies before anything else happens. Moving boxes in a couple of sizes, packing tape, a tape gun that holds the roll properly, bubble wrap for glass, packing paper for plates, and a box cutter. Wardrobe boxes are the one splurge worth making, because hanging clothes go in on their hangers and come out ready to hang again. Permanent markers matter more than they sound: a box you seal without labeling is a box you open twice.
Ten things to have before the truck arrives
If everything else is already sealed in a stack, these are the ones worth finding again.
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Moving boxes -
Packing tape -
Permanent markers -
Bubble wrap -
Work gloves -
Trash bags - Bedding set
- Towels
- Toilet paper
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Phone chargers
Setting up utilities before you get the keys
Internet is the one to book first, because somebody may have to come out and run a line, and the earliest appointment is rarely the one you want. Ask the building or the landlord which providers are wired in, pick a plan, and book the install as soon as you have a key date. If you work from home, keep a phone hotspot ready for the gap.
Electricity and gas are quicker. Call the suppliers for the new address and ask them to start service on your move-in date, not the day after, so you aren’t carrying boxes into a dark apartment. Ask the landlord who bills the water and the trash pickup, since both are often handled by the building or the city rather than by you.
Then the small administrative ones that only bite later: mail forwarding, a parking permit if the street needs one, and a booking for the building elevator or loading bay if there is one. Buildings that require an elevator reservation tend to require it well ahead, and moving day is a bad time to find that out.
Labeling so unpacking isn’t a scavenger hunt
Write the room on the box, not the contents. “Kitchen” tells the person carrying it where to put it down, which is the only decision anyone is making while the truck is being emptied. Add two or three words about what’s inside for your own sake, and write it on the side as well as the top, because boxes get stacked.
Mark the fragile ones on every face, and mark the ones you want opened first with something you can spot across a room: a strip of colored tape, a big star, whatever you have in your hand.
Keep a rough count of how many boxes come off the truck per room. It takes a minute and it is the only way you’ll notice that the box with the router in it never made it inside.
Heavy things go in small boxes, light things in big ones. A big box of books is a box nobody can lift, and it’s the one that splits on the stairs.
The box that saves the first night
The common mistake isn’t packing badly, it’s packing everything. At some point on moving day you stop being able to find anything, and that is exactly the moment you need a towel.
Pack one box with bedding, pillows, towels, toilet paper, hand soap, a shower curtain, toothbrush and paste, phone chargers, a kettle, and mugs. Tape it, label it on all four sides, and put it in your own car rather than the truck. It goes into the new place first and gets opened first.
Keep a separate bag on your shoulder for keys, wallet and IDs, medications, the laptop, a power bank, and the paperwork for the move: lease or deed, the moving quote, insurance papers. Nothing in that bag goes near the truck, and nothing in the truck matters as much.
