moving tips

12 Dec, 2025

I just moved from a 50m² apartment to a 30m² apartment. Never liked moving, it's exhausting. Even though moving to a new place is in many ways about moving forward in life, paradoxically it feels like you're putting you're life on a pause for a few weeks. Packing, moving, unpacking, an all the other chores.

This move did not go too well. Here's some thoughts and stuff I want to do different next time. Completely based on my experiences, in a big city with no car.

Getting rid of stuff

If you know you got stuff you want to get rid of before the move, start going through your items early. It's stressful and takes takes time - for every item you need to decide:

do I want to keep it?
If not, what do I do with it?
- Sell it? For how much?
- Donate it? To where/whom?
- Throw it away? Really?

Easy for an item or two. Not easy for 245 items. My plan was to get rid most of my stuff (no space in the new apartment) and boy I didn't expect how emotionally draining it was to go through, and get rid of the stuff I've accumulated over the years.

Just hire the damn moving company

My plan was to minimize my belongings and stuff them into few boxes I had. Nice plan, problem was that I wasn't able to donate nearly enough stuff, and I didn't have enough boxes. This meant having all my goods in a few boxes, some backpacks and some trash bags lol.

If you hire a moving company you can choose to rent big, stackable, durable plastic boxes from them. They make life sooooo much easier. Easy to pack, easy to stack (more optimized space usage in the van), easy to carry.

Don't drive yourself

...unless you have a car. I don't, so I rented a van. Not a good idea, adds just extra stress to your moving day. Renting means having to go get the van, drive and park in weird places with an unfamiliar car (to minimize van -> door distance), and then after the move you have to go back and return the van.

Solution is the point above, just hire the moving company.

Start early

Luckily I live in a paradise-country where moving days are paid leave days. Well, this applies even if it's unpaid leave, or a weekend.

You're gonna have unexpected stuff on the moving day. Start early to avoid rush hours, maximize sunlight and moving time.

Do the paperwork early

I left the boring stuff, like getting an electricity contract to the last day. Long story short, because of that, I had to move and live the first day without any electricity :-)

Final cleaning

Get help from friends for the final cleaning (I did!) or just hire a company to do it. If you hire a company, you can move all your stuff, including cleaning equipment on one day and don't have to go back to the old apartment anymore.

Conclusion

This whole post was just a note to myself: you hate moving, next time do everything in your power to minimize the stress around it.