Congratulations! You landed that better job in a great new city, you found the perfect apartment after months of searching, or you’ve just closed on the home of your dreams. This is an exciting time and you’re probably more than ready to make the leap, but getting to the next stage in your life will be a huge frustration. Moving is essentially packing your entire life into boxes and lugging it across town, country, or even the world and creating a home.
Preparing for a move can even be fun, but once it’s time to start the hard work, you realize that everything you thought would take ten minutes is actually going to take thirty, and everything you thought would take an hour is actually going to take five. And all of a sudden you are completely off schedule while still trying to manage your everyday life. Now you’re not even sure you’ll be ready for moving day.
Moving day arrives and is a long, sweaty, and all-around unenjoyable experience, but you get it done, you sit down on your couch in your new living room take a second to close your eyes and relax, just to open them to find your entire life in boxes that now have to be unpacked. So yes – moving is stressful and the first tip is in reducing the stress is to simply accept that moving IS stressful and it is completely acceptable to feel this way. Acknowledge the feeling, just don’t succumb to it.
Tips and Trick to Reduce Moving Stress:
PURGE – Stuff will accumulate over time, especially if you have lived in one place for years. Junk drawers, closets, bathroom cabinets, all filled to the brim with nonessential items. The last thing you want to do is bring clutter into your new home. Start the process by removing everything that will not need to be packed and organizing into toss, donate, and sell “piles”
Give yourself time. The process is already stressful enough, but going through it with the extra stress of a ticking clock running out is not ideal. Be sure to start packing as far away from the move as possible so as the big day approaches you are close to finished. If it is plausible you should try to take a week off work. Giving yourself plenty of time to finish the packing, complete the move, and unpack with a cleared schedule.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. When thinking about everything that needs to be done in the abstract you may feel like quitting before even getting started. Start small by tackling the simple tasks first, the Christmas decorations, a barely used kitchen drawer. You’ll soon see how quickly these will add up.
Ask for help! An extra set of hands can greatly minimize the stress of moving, and having someone else around is a great distraction from what might be an otherwise overwhelming task. Plan ahead so you can easily recruit friends and family for the task. Moving is one instance where the more the merrier, absolutely rings true. If it is in your budget, you can even hire movers to really unburden yourself.
If you have already closed on a new home or secured the apartment, then you now just need to worry about the actual move. If you are at the beginning where you still are in need of finding your next home – then you do have one more hurdle to overcome before the move. The home buying process can be just as – if not more stressful than the move itself. Having a good realtor is the number one trick to making this process go smooth. Key Realty’s agents are experienced and committed to removing all the unnecessary stress that will come before the move itself. Reach out today for help in the buying process!