While it may not be as dramatic as graduating from school, getting married, or accepting your first job offer, moving home ranks among life’s top sources of stress. It stirs up plenty of inner conflict and confusion. You may feel overwhelmed on how to get everything done if you have a tight deadline and still have to go to work while arranging your move.
Moving also agitates many mixed emotions. While you may be excited about moving to a new city or state, a part of you may also be anxious about how things will work out while another part of you may be sad that you won’t be able to hang out at your favorite places with your friends again. Additionally, behind this welter of conflicted thoughts and feelings, there may also be some unacknowledged trepidation that you might not get everything done on time.
The way to dramatically reduce your stress is to get highly organized. When you do, your thoughts will be less distracted, and you’ll be more inclined to dwell on the positive aspects of your move.
DIY vs Hiring Movers
Should you hire professional movers or do the work yourself?
This depends on many things: It depends on your budget, how far you have to move, how complex the move will be, and how much time and energy you have available to move.
Often, you won’t save much money moving on your own if you’re moving a long distance. Your accumulated costs may well exceed the cost-effective moving packages available from professionals like Allied Van Lines.
Besides the cost factor, you may not be able to carry a couch down a flight of stairs and your family and friends may not be up for many hours of heavy lifting; you may not know how to drive a large truck across country, and you may not be able to get enough free time after work to do all the packing on your own.
Carefully weigh the pros and cons on whether to move yourself or get help. Don’t make the decision based on your budget alone.
Get Organized as Early as Possible
Theoretically, it may not appear that an early start makes much of a difference if you have plenty of time before moving day, but practically, that’s far from true.
When you start packing early, you’ll have a lot more time to go through your belongings more carefully and get rid of excess stuff. You’ll also do a better job of breaking down the work into measurable chunks of time so that it doesn’t become exhausting.
Packing early is the best way to reduce stress and stay organized throughout your move.
Purge your Stuff
Most people are surprised by how much stuff they’ve accumulated over the years. Much of it, we come to find out, is stuff that we no longer want, need, or desire.
A simple way to declutter every room in your home is to have boxes to place things in. You’ll need boxes to store things you plan to trash, for things you want to recycle, for things you want to donate, and for things you can’t make up your mind about.
Since you’ll probably have to sort through a lot of paper, buying a shredder might also be useful.
Stay in Touch
It takes years to make friends, but only a single move to lose most of them. Since we live in a busy world, staying in touch with people requires hard work. You will need to coordinate and persist when staying in touch with family and friends.
Fortunately, no matter how far you move away, there are many ways to stay in touch. Communication technology will save you much time and effort in staying connected.
It doesn’t take much time or effort to arrange a Skype talk or Google Hangout. For ongoing contact, use social media platforms to keep tabs on what’s happening in people’s lives. And, of course, you can always call, leave voice messages, and send “thinking of you” gifts on special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries.
In closing, the secret to reducing the level of stress you feel when making a move is to create plans and schedules. Stress is often a result of dealing with unknowns, but since the move is entirely in your hands, you can determine all the necessary steps you’ll need to make for everything to go smoothly.
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