8 Ways To Make Relocating As Painless As Possible

If you’ve ever moved anywhere, you know that moving is essentially the worst process in the world. But sometimes it’s necessary. And you can do it.

Step 1: Get a big notebook with pockets

Your patron saint of this pain-in-the-ass process is Saint Notebook of Office Depot. It’ll have at least four sections: OLD APARTMENT, NEW APARTMENT, MOVING, and MISC. In it, you’ll obsessively make and cross off lists. Scraps of paper will be embraced by Saint Notebook’s loving pockets.

Step 2: Give stuff away

Decide how you really feel about each of the 10,000 items you own. Do you want to commit to carefully wrapping it, putting it in a truck, carrying it up stairs, unwrapping it, and placing it in your new home? If not, toss it.

Step 3: Get decent boxes

Free grocery-store boxes cannot be your everything. While you’re buying new boxes, get two rolls of packing tape, a good pair of scissors, and some Sharpies.

Step 4: Things that live in the same room go in boxes together

Label the boxes with your Sharpies: LIVING ROOM! OPIUM DEN! In one box, put anything you’ll need immediately (toiletries, underwear) and label it “OPEN NOW!”

Step 5: Coddle fragile items

Wrap each in more newsprint than seems reasonable and seal with tape. Then find a sturdy vessel they can fit snugly within.

Step 6: Co-dependent items get taped to each other

TV remotes get taped to the top of the TV, and so on. These items are going through enough stress already; there’s no need to separate them and add to it.

Step 7: Give precious things special treatment

Photo albums, love letters, and your grandmother’s sketchbook should be wrapped in plastic, then put in sealable Tupperware.

Step 8: Breathe, because it’ll eventually be over

Moving can make you crazier than you ever thought possible. But you’ll soon start your new life, decorate your new apartment, and swear to never move again. –kelly williams brown

Excerpted from the book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps. Copyright © 2013 by Kelly Williams Brown. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved.