Everybody knows that moving house is a stressful affair for a number of valid reasons:
you’re getting worried about the financial aspect of the move,
you’re saying goodbye to your good friends,
you may be moving away from family members,
you’re leaving your favorite places behind,
you’re taking a big step out of your comfort zone, and
you may be afraid of the unknown future.
All these major factors can be extremely nerve-wracking, especially when they work against you in combination. However, add the Limited Time ingredient into your house-moving cocktail and the resulting mix can easily become highly volatile.
Having very little time to organize a move will put plenty of extra strain on an already tense situation. When you have to move out of a place in just a few days or you have to move out of state on short notice, then the entire approach to the upcoming move will have to be radically different.
For example, you just can’t keep packing your stuff a few boxes a day knowing that you have weeks to finish up the packing task. When moving in a hurry, you’ll have to figure out a way to complete the packing job in record time.
Emergency moving is not for the faint of heart. And yet, you should be able to make it work provided that you’re familiar with the key emergency moving steps.
Follow these 10 steps to handle an emergency move in the best possible way:
Step 1. Don’t panic
The very first step to surviving an emergency move is to resist the urge to panic. You just cannot afford to panic – instead, you must stay cool, calm, and collected in order to have a good chance of managing the difficult situation without any serious negative consequences for you.
Keep in mind that decisions made in a state of panic are almost always bad and it’s extremely likely that you’re going to regret such panic decisions after the move or even before the house move is even over. The real problem though is that by that time, it’ll be already too late to do something about it.
Even though time will be working against you the moment you learn that you have to execute an emergency move, you still need to take some time to think about what your overall strategy will be. Take a deep breath to calm yourself down as much as you can and take a moment to weigh your relocation options before you do anything else.
To increase your chances of pulling off a successful emergency move, the next step is to assess carefully the situation in order to go with the best option under the presented set of house moving circumstances.
In other words, you must be realistic about the choices available to you at the moment in time. In stressful situations when time is critical for the success of the entire operation, it’s always a good idea to refrain from doing what you want to do and instead do what has to be done. Regrettably, those two concepts seldom coincide when moving to a new home.
When moving out in a hurry, one good example of doing what’s right is to hire emergency moving services to guarantee a successful end to your relocation story. You may want to organize a self-move without any emergency moving help, but if you only have a few days until you have to move out of the place, then organizing and executing a DIY move is simply not a feasible plan.
Proper time management is key during an emergency move.
One of the most important things to remember when moving in a hurry is that time management is truly critical and, in reality, will be the difference between success and failure.
The thing is you can’t afford to lose any time in doing nothing from the moment your emergency move is confirmed. Wasting precious hours by being idle could cost you in the end, especially when you only have several days to move out of your current place.
Obviously, how much you need to speed up the moving preparation will depend primarily on exactly how much time you have until the move-out day. It could be a couple of days or it could be a week – still, it’s far less than having at least 4 weeks to get ready to move out.
Don’t waste any time being too shocked by the news of having to move out. Instead, accept the situation quickly so that you can start working on the emergency move without any delay.
To handle the excessive stress of an emergency move, you’ll need to have a guarantee that you have a good chance of success in order to lower the overall pressure to manageable limits. Luckily, you can get that type of guarantee for success in the form of a moving checklist.
Under normal circumstances (not having to move out in such a hurry), a super-detailed MOVING CHECKLIST will be of great help to organize your time in a highly logical and methodical way. However, instead of having at least one month to prepare for your move, this time you’ll only have a few days to organize an emergency move.
Therefore, the best solution when moving on short notice is to use a special shortened version of a standard moving calendar simply because you won’t have time to take care of all pre-move tasks.
The emergency moving checklist you have to use during a last-minute move will only contain the most critical jobs that you must do no matter how much time you’ve got. For example, don’t bother changing your address now since you can do it after moving to the new place.
Step 5. Move only your essentials
When you’re moving in a great hurry, it won’t make much sense to move all of your belongings simply because you won’t have enough time to pack them all up. In fact, packing and moving all your stuff is considered to be a classic mistake when moving house for several good reasons:
you’ll need more packing supplies,
you’ll have to pay higher transportation costs,
you’ll have to find sufficient storage space in the new place, and
you’ll waste valuable time packing, moving, and unpacking things that you don’t really need.
To save precious time during an emergency move, don’t bother packing and moving any items that you 1) don’t like, 2) don’t want, and 3) don’t see yourself using in the near future.
Go through your items and decide on the spot which items you’ll take with you and which ones you’ll leave behind. When unsure about what to do with some of your things, just discard them to speed up the packing and moving process as a whole.
Unfortunately, your decision to discard some of your things prior to moving away is not enough – you’ll also need to decide what to do with those discarded items.
Given enough time, you could organize a moving sale to get rid of the unwanted things and earn some much-needed money at the same time. Even if the profit wasn’t much, it’d still be a win-win situation. With more time on your hands, you could even sell your discarded things online.
However, when you’re facing an emergency move, time is a luxury that you just don’t have. So, instead of trying to sell any unwanted items, your best bet is to give them away – either to charitable organizations or to friends and family.
The thing is that as long as the things you’ve discarded still have any value left in them, you should be able to find people who want to take them. And that’s the idea of offering them for free – you want to get rid of them as soon as you possibly can.
As soon as you know for sure that you’re moving out, your primary goal should be to use your time efficiently without wasting any hours. That’s right – hours, not days. And since packing for a move will be the most time-consuming task on your hands, you should focus on completing the packing job on time.
If you happen to have a few days until Moving day, then you should definitely start packing your things by yourself. Now that you’re left only with the items you do like and want to keep, you should find the packing task somewhat easier to complete.
On the other hand, if you have to move out almost immediately and you don’t even have several days to get ready, then the only option that’s available to you is to hire professional packers to get the job done in a record short time. But even if you’re expecting the pros to come and show their advanced packing skills, you should still pack up whatever you can by yourself to save precious time.
When you’re moving urgently, it can be very useful to know specific tricks that will speed up significantly the entire packing process. In case you decide to pack up your things without emergency moving assistance (understand professional packers and movers), you will need to know how to pack your things quickly – really quickly.
Here are some quick packing tips that you should find helpful when packing by yourself:
Leave dressers and chests full as long as they are full of light and non-breakable items such as pieces of clothing. Consider stretch-wrapping the open part of drawers for extra protection.
Pack your hanging clothes really fast by inserting them into clean and strong trash bags directly from the dresser or wardrobe, together with the hangers.
Prepare essentials boxes when you’re moving out in a hurry. Pack inside them essential items that you need by your side at all times such as prescription medications, for example.
Do NOT waste any time packing items that are forbidden for transport for safety reasons. Such non-allowable items include dangerous materials that can burn, corrode, or explode during transit. Movers won’t move perishable foods, plants, and pets either.
Emergency moving? No problem – your good friends can save the day.
During an emergency move, any kind of help should be more than welcome for you. And what better emergency moving assistance than your best friends willing to give you a hand with whatever help you may need at that moment.
There are various ways your friends can help you out in the case of a last-minute move: they can give you cardboard boxes or other packing materials for free, they can come over and help you with the arduous task of packing, and they can help you lift and carry heavy furniture pieces, if any.
It’s great to know that you can rely on your pals when you really need their help. However, since you’ll be asking them for a favor at the last possible moment, you shouldn’t expect all of them to rush to help you out. And you shouldn’t judge them for saying NO either – after all, they must have already made specific plans for the day you need them to be at your place.
Don’t despair if your buddies can’t come to your rescue. Instead, focus on Plan B – hiring last-minute movers to help you move to wherever you need to go.
When you have to move out fast, you don’t have any time to try to organize a DIY move, and your friends have made it clear that they cannot really help you out this time, your only option to make it work is to contact emergency movers.
Professional packers and movers have been trained to work efficiently so they are the ones who can pack up your things fast enough and transport safely your belongings to the new place. Regrettably, you’re likely to pay a higher price than the standard movers’ rates due to the fact that you’re calling in emergency moving assistance at the last minute.
Use our Moving Cost Calculator to learn how much last-minute moving services will cost you.
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