Let’s face it. While moving your family to a new place may sound like a very exciting idea, many people dread the thought of having to pack all their stuff and have it moved to another location.  It’s a guaranteed stress additive to your life, bringing an almost equal stress level to that of nursing a hangover the entire day. If you don’t have a well-organized, and a well-thought out plan of attack, you’re going to have a bad time.

Losing your sanity over moving to a new community doesn’t have to be the case. Here are 5 quick tips to help you get through an organized and stress-free moving experience, and maybe even have spare time for a cup of tea when you’re done.

Prepare for the Big Day in Advance

Like anything in this world, waiting until the last minute might not be a very good idea. Make a list of everything you need before even thinking of putting anything in a box. It’s tough to do this in one session, even tougher when you do it the last minute. Start by organizing everything using a notebook or a word document. Create a list of numbers that will represent boxes and write all the contents you want to go together under one number, and then move on to the next. So, box # 1 might contain all your kitchenware etc. You also want to designate a place for all these boxes to easily locate them, especially on the big day.

Find, Declutter, Profit

Who says moving only involves spending? One way to make things easier to pack is to find everything you will not need in your new place. Once you’ve got all this sorted out, you can take all those items and put up a garage sale. It’s like hitting two birds with one stone. You lose excess stuff and make money from it. Who knows when you’ll need that extra cash, especially for number 3.

Store up on Supplies

You can never have just enough boxes. Think of how many boxes you’ll need for the move and add 20 more. It will make your life easier. Also, you would want to make sure you have enough bubble wrap, packing paper, and let’s not forget, packing tape.

Let There be Light: Have Utilities at Your New Home Activated in Advance

This is one thing that you want to make sure you’ve covered at least a day before you move in. You do not want to make the mistake of starting with the wrong foot by arriving at your new place and getting everything unloaded only to find out that electricity and water won’t be turned on in a couple of hours, or worse, until the next day.

Making the Move

Now that you’ve got everything packed and ready to go, it’s time to strategize how you’re going to load everything and how you can take them out without any trouble. Make sure you have at least two people in helping you with this task. Load up the heaviest items first (washer, fridge, dryer etc.) and place them at the back of the truck. Once you’ve got those loaded, place all the heaviest boxes and build a stack that would act as a wall for the heavier items at the back, but make sure that you’re stacking them like bricks (T-stack) to make sure that everything is stable. After this, you can finish up by loading the medium sized and smaller sized boxes and the rest of your stuff to make the unloading easier.

You cannot let the stress ruin what is supposed to be a new beginning in your life, and again, a well-thought, well-organized plan is the key for a better experience in moving.