The Moving Checklist, Counted Back From Move Day

Almost nothing on a move list is difficult. The trouble is that most of it has a lead time attached to something outside your control — a landlord's notice period, an elevator booking, an installation appointment, a depot's opening hours — and lead times do not compress just because you started late.

So the list below runs backwards from move day. Find where you are on it, and do everything above your position first.

Eight weeks out: decisions, not tasks

This far out you are not packing. You are deciding what shape the move takes.

• Get scopes from two or three companies. Give each one the same information — both addresses, the floor at each end, stairs or elevator, where a truck can sit, your date and how fixed it is, and an honest list of the awkward and specialist items. Three companies working from the same facts give you three comparable answers. Three companies guessing give you three numbers that mean different things.
• Start one folder and keep everything in it. Quotes, building forms, lease documents, confirmation emails. Paper or a phone folder — it does not matter, as long as there is only one.
• Declutter room by room, not all at once. Everything you decide not to keep is something you do not wrap, carry, unload or find a home for. This is the only step on the list that makes every later step shorter.
• Photograph anything valuable while it is still in place. Condition photographs are far more useful before a move than reconstructed after one.

Six weeks out: lock the logistics

• Confirm the booking. Peak stretches — late spring through summer, and the last week of any month — fill first. See how the demand calendar actually works if your date has any flexibility in it.
• Give notice. Read your lease for the required notice period rather than assuming it. Give it in the form the lease specifies, in writing.
• Start collecting cartons. Uniform sizes stack; a mixed pile does not. If you are buying, buy fewer, better boxes than more weak ones.
• Ask both buildings what they require. Not "do you need anything" — ask specifically about elevator booking, time windows, floor and wall protection, loading bay access and insurance documentation. Getting this in writing six weeks out is a different experience from getting it three days out.

Four weeks out: packing begins

• Pack what you will not miss. Off-season clothing, books, spare linen, decor, the contents of the deep cupboard. If you would not notice it gone for a month, it can go now.
• Label the room and the contents. "Kitchen — pans and baking trays" tells a crew where to set it down and tells you whether you need to open it tonight. "Kitchen" tells you neither.
• Book the time off. Move day plus one. The day after is not a luxury; it is when you find out that the bed frame hardware is in a box you have not opened.
• Tell the people who need to know. Employer, schools, doctor, dentist, veterinarian. These are all short calls that become long problems if left.

Two weeks out: the administrative block

This is the part everyone underestimates, and it is almost entirely phone calls and web forms.

• Change your address with the postal service, your bank and cards, insurers, subscriptions, your employer's payroll, and every government record that carries it.
• Transfer the utilities — power, gas, water where the municipality requires a call, and internet. Book the internet installation now; it is the one with the longest queue and the one you will most regret.
• Do not schedule the disconnection for the morning. Set it for the end of move day at the old address and the start of move day at the new one. You will want lights at both ends.
• Run down the fridge and freezer. Stop buying perishables and plan the last week's meals around what is already in there.
• Reconfirm with your mover. Date, arrival window, both addresses, access codes, elevator booking, anything that needs special handling and how payment is handled.

The last week: the things that must be in your own hands

• Pack the box that does not go on the truck. Bedding, towels, toiletries, medication, chargers, a change of clothes, basic tools, a box cutter, toilet paper, hand soap and the coffee setup. It travels in your own vehicle.
• Photograph the back of anything you will have to reconnect. Television, router, desk setup, speakers. Two minutes now, an hour saved later.
• Clear the paths at both ends. A crew's first task should not be moving your obstacles.
• Set aside the irreplaceables. Documents, keys, jewellery, drives and backups, and anything sentimental that cannot be bought again. There is a fuller list in what not to let movers pack.

Move day: presence, not supervision

• Be reachable, not hovering. A crew works faster with someone available for a decision than with someone watching each carry.
• Walk the empty place before you hand over the keys. Every closet, every cabinet, the space behind the doors, the top shelf of the wardrobe, the garage rafters, the shed.
• Keep the valuables and the essentials box in your own vehicle. Not in the last load "for convenience."
• Note the condition of the new place before anything comes in. Empty rooms photograph honestly.

The first week after

• Unpack in order of need. Beds, bathroom, kitchen. Everything else can sit for a fortnight without consequence.
• Update your driver's licence and vehicle records. There is a statutory window for this in most provinces — check the current requirement with your provincial insurer or licensing body rather than assuming last year's rule.
• Test the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and find the electrical panel, the water shutoff and the gas shutoff before you need any of them.
• Break down the cartons as you empty them. A flat stack goes to a depot in one trip; a loose pile takes over a room for a month.

If your move sits inside a strata building

Two items on this list carry more weight when either end is a strata or a managed building, and both belong in the six-week block rather than the last week.

The elevator booking is the first. Many buildings hold a limited number of move windows and release them on a set schedule; a Saturday slot in a busy tower is not something you find on a Thursday.

The insurance documentation is the second. Most managed buildings will not open a service elevator without a certificate on file naming the corporation, and the requirements differ enough between buildings that the only reliable move is to send your building's actual wording to your mover early. How that document works, and what goes wrong with it, is worth reading before you call the building manager rather than after.

What this list is really doing

Every item above is there because it has a queue in front of it — a notice period, a booking calendar, an installation window, a depot's hours, a broker issuing a document. Packing is the only part of a move that responds to working harder. Everything else responds only to starting sooner.

If you would rather have the sequence written against your actual two addresses and your actual date, send us the route and the access details at both ends and the plan comes back in writing. Start your move brief, or call 778-994-2303 if it is easier to talk the dates through.