![Packing time seems to fly.](https://www.mymovingreviews.com/move/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/quick-packing.jpg)
Highlights
- When you’re well prepared and how to pack in a quick and efficient manner, you can pack your entire home for moving in just a few days.
- In order to pack quickly for a move, you need to pare down your possessions and to use smart and effective packing strategies.
- Make sure you have appropriate packing materials and reliable packing help.
- Stay focused, pack room by room, and be sure not to sacrifice safety for time.
It’s been a little over a century since Einstein’s theory of relativity declared that space and time are relative to the observer and can only be defined in relation to a specific person and a specific situation. When you think of it, it’s in fact quite easy to come up with a great many examples that undeniably prove the principle of relativity: every so often, time seems to stand completely still; or drag for eternity; or fly at hyper-speed – it all depends on the moment, the current circumstances, and our state of mind.
This relativity of time can either be used as an advantage or a detriment, depending on the person and the situation. If you adopt the right approach, it can help you win the race with time, even when it seems impossible to do so – like when packing for a last-minute move.
When pressed for time and faced with such a laborious and time-consuming task, you have only one viable option – acknowledge that time is not an absolute and make it stretch long enough for you to finish packing before the Big day comes. But how can you do that? How to pack quickly and efficiently enough? How to make time?
The fast packing tips below will reveal you the secret and help you pack your entire home in just a few days. Yes, that’s right – you’ll be able to pack for a move in as little as three days.
How to Pack Quickly for a Move
When there is a will, there is a way – no matter whether you need to pack for a move in a week, in three days, or in one day, you can pack your house quickly enough. All you need to do is follow some proven packing tips for moving in a hurry:
![A detailed packign calendar will help you pack quickly and efficiently.](https://www.mymovingreviews.com/move/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/packing-timeline.jpg)
1) Start immediately. Pondering about how unfair life is will do you no good – you need to accept the situation, brace yourself, and get down to work as soon as possible. So, the moment you learn that you’re moving house, you should initiate the packing process, without procrastination or delays.
2) Pare down your possessions. Time may be relative but the correlation between the amount of household goods you have for moving and the time necessary to pack them for shipment is constant – the fewer items you decide to relocate to your new home, the less time it will take to prepare them for shipping. So, in order to pack house quickly, you need to reduce the number of items you have for packing – simple as that (as an added bonus this will also help cut down the final moving cost):
- Go through each and every object in your home and assess its practical and sentimental value – decide whether you need it or not, whether you like it or not, if you’ll be able to use it in your new surroundings or not, if it has high sentimental value or not, etc.;
- Based on your assessment, separate all your belongings into three different piles – “Take”, “Give away”, “Throw away” (unfortunately, there will be no “SELL” pile, as you won’t have the time to organize a garage sale or sell your items online at this point). If you’re not sure about a certain item, make your decision depending on the time and effort it will take to pack that item for moving. Remember – right now SPEED is your top priority;
- Take the items from the last pile to a recycling center and ask your friends and relatives to come over and choose anything they like from the “Give away” pile. Then, arrange for a local charity to come pick the rest of your still useful, but no-longer needed household goods.
3) Know what not to pack. Ask your chosen movers for a list of the non-allowable items they won’t move for safety reasons and make sure you don’t waste time and supplies packing something you’ll be forced to leave behind.
4) Create a packing timeline. It may be difficult to believe but spending some extra time to create a detailed packing schedule will actually save you a lot of time when you start packing – instead of packing random items in a random manner (which will inevitably result in rookie packing mistakes and lots of wasted time and nerves), you’ll have a reliable guide to keep you focused, motivated, and well-organized from start to finish.
Your customized packing calendar will help you pack in a logical and systematic way, concentrate on one task at a time, and keep track of your progress.
You need to distribute the number of rooms you have for packing over the remaining days, break each main objective (e.g., packing the kitchen) into smaller packing goals (packing the dishes, packing the pantry, etc.), set an appropriate timeframe for the completion of each packing task, prioritize the tasks according to their importance and difficulty (always start with the rooms that are most difficult to pack), and stick to your schedule, no matter what.
5) Get appropriate packing materials. Using old moving boxes which you can get for free from local businesses or other people who have recently moved is a well-known strategy for cutting down the moving costs, but it is not a good idea when packing for a move in a hurry. Not only won’t you have the time to search for free moving boxes, but it will also take you much longer to pack your items into previously-used moving containers – you’ll have to carefully inspect them to make sure they’re clean and intact, reinforce their bottoms for added safety, find a way to fit your belongings into cartons of inappropriate sizes, etc.
![Fast packing can be fun when your good friends come to lend you a hand.](https://www.mymovingreviews.com/move/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/packing-friends.jpg)
Therefore, you’re strongly advised to purchase brand new moving boxes and quality packing supplies (bubble wrap, packing paper, packing tape, etc.) from your chosen moving company – you will save the time necessary to look for adequate packing materials and the specialized packing items you buy will be in excellent condition and especially designed to ensure the best possible protection of your items, so that you will be able to pack quickly and easily.
6) Take photos of your belongings before you pack them. You won’t have the time to create a detailed moving inventory of your possessions, but the pictures you take will serve as a proof of the type, number, and condition of the items you have entrusted to the movers.
Besides, these photos will save you plenty of time when packing and unpacking, as you won’t need to organize the cables and wires when unhooking electronic devices and household appliances or the contents of the bookshelves when emptying your furniture, etc. – one look at the picture will allow you to recreate your home décor, reassemble your furniture, and reconnect your electronics after the move.
7) Get friends and family to help you. Every extra hand will save you several hours of hard work when packing for a move, so the more “packing help” you can ensure, the better.
Involve all the family members in the packing process (including your kids, if they are old enough) and ask your good friends to lend you a hand – after all, this will give you an opportunity to spend some more time together before the move, reminiscing about the past or planning about the future. Your fast packing endeavor may even turn into a fun event with good music, amiable jokes, and challenging packing games.
8) Set aside your essentials. One last important thing to do before you initiate the actual packing process – set aside everything you’re going to need until Moving day, on Moving day itself, and during the first couple of days in your new home.
Make sure your essentials won’t get mixed with the rest of your belongings (which is really easy when packing house fast), so that you don’t end up wasting time opening already packed moving boxes in search of something you need or arrive at your new home without your first-night box which has been accidentally loaded on the moving truck that is due to arrive in about 3 days, for example.
Once you have taken care of all of the above, you can finally start packing.
I liked that you mentioned you can pack your books in wheeled suitcases to prevent back injuries when moving. My sister will be moving to another house soon, and we are looking for advice. I will recommend her to pack all her books in wheeled suitcases to prevent injuries while moving.
I like your recommendation to leave dressers full of their contents as long as the items aren’t fragile or too heavy. My wife and I moved to our current house in less than a week, but now that we have three kids, we have a lot more stuff. We may consider hiring a moving company to help us move faster.
It was great you pointed out packing a room at a time to make the moving process faster. My brother is moving to a different house, and he wants the moving to be smooth. I will pas shim the tips so he can be prepared before the movers arrive.
The main thing I learned from moving is if you hire a professional, make sure you pack your valuables, prescriptions, fresh foods, and plants yourself. They will not move these things for you.
I found it interesting when you said to have a specific room to gather items and pack the stuff. My wife and I need to pack up our apartment this week so we can move into our new home. I’ll have to try some of these tips to streamline the process of packing and moving this week.
I love this website and all its tips, lists, and money savers! There is one link though that is malfunctioning that is quite important. On this page, it is the “Customized Packing Calendar.” It’s linked to this page: https://www.mymovingreviews.com/move/packing-timeline/.
There are many pages on this website that link to that page. Most of them do take one to the exact section on the page where the download should be, but the information itself is not clickable.
This is the page I was hoping to find: https://www.mymovingreviews.com/move/moving-timeline/.
Great tips on how to move quickly! It would be ideal if we had more time to think about moving, but the tips you give really help give that extra “push” to get things moving quickly. I find it’s also also super important to make sure you get a reliable moving company that knows what they’re doing. It saves so much time and headache with your move!
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