Why the dates matter
Every downloadable moving checklist says “eight weeks before”. None of them tell you when that is, which means the first thing you do with the list is arithmetic — and the arithmetic is where people get it wrong. A move booked for the 14th, planned from a list that says “book movers six weeks out”, regularly ends up with movers booked at four weeks, by which point the good ones are gone.
Enter the date and every heading becomes a real week.
If the move is sooner than eight weeks away, the phases that have already passed are collected into a single block at the top rather than printed as though they were still ahead of you. That is the honest shape of a compressed move: a lot of things at once, right now.
The three with the longest lead times
Everything else can be caught up. These cannot:
Internet at the new address. Two to three weeks is normal and some installs need an engineer visit with its own queue. This is the single most commonly late item on any moving list.
The mover booking. The last weekend of the month, and every weekend in June, July and August, are the busiest slots in the industry. A verbal hold is not a booking; get it in writing with the date and the arrival window on it.
Utility connection at the new place. Note connection, not disconnection. Arriving to a house with no power and no water is a bad first night and an entirely avoidable one.
The two packing decisions that matter
The open-first box. Kettle, mugs, toilet roll, soap, towels, chargers, scissors, a knife, bin bags, shower curtain, medication. Label it in a colour nothing else uses. It travels in the car, not the truck — the truck may arrive the next day, and on a long move it may arrive several days later.
A suitcase each, packed as if for a week away. This is the highest-value line on the whole list. It removes the situation where four people are opening random boxes at eleven at night looking for underwear and a toothbrush.
Everything else is just packing.
What you take yourself
Documents passports, deeds, lease, birth certificates, insurance
Valuables jewellery, cash, anything small and expensive
Medication including the pets'
Electronics laptops, drives, anything with data on it
The folder quotes, contracts, inventory, receipts
Open-first box + one suitcase each
Movers will generally refuse to carry the first two categories, and their liability does not cover them if they do. They also cannot legally carry paint, propane, petrol, aerosols, most cleaning chemicals or batteries — that is a disposal job in the final week, not a packing job.
Moving day, in order
- Walk every room, cupboard and closet before the truck leaves. Twice. Including the loft, the shed, the dishwasher, the back of the airing cupboard and the medicine cabinet.
- Read the inventory before you sign it. Note anything already damaged on the form itself. Once signed, a condition dispute becomes very hard to win.
- Photograph the meters at both ends.
- Count the boxes off the truck before it drives away.
- Find the water shutoff and the electrical panel at the new place in the first fifteen minutes — before a single box is opened. This is the one people consistently wish they had done, and it takes almost no time on a day when nothing is in the way yet.
After the truck leaves
Two deadlines are worth knowing because they are short and they are yours to miss:
- Damage claims. Interstate movers work to a statutory window that is generous on paper, but many local contracts are far shorter. Photograph anything damaged the day you find it and file in writing.
- Driver’s licence and vehicle registration after a state line. Most states give you thirty days and some enforce it.
And if you rent: do the move-in condition report and photograph everything before you unpack. Once there is furniture in a room you cannot evidence the floor underneath it, and that is exactly what gets disputed when you leave.
Book the day after the move off work as well. Nobody is useful the day after a move, and treating it as a working day is how people end up unpacking for three weeks.