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Moving Strategies?
skotte asks: "I currently am in a position where I will be moving my whole set of belongings to a new apartment. But I refuse to just buy a bunch of boxes and start throwing things in. Surely there is a good strategy of how to tackle the act of packing. I'm thinking "Relatively" where everything related, such as CDs, go in one box, cables go in another. Or there's 'spatially', where I pack everything in one bookcase in one box. Or there's 'by Priority' in which important things i'll need right away go in one box...and on and on. There appear to indeed be LOTS of ways to go about it -- and there are big pros-and-cons to each. So what does the slashdot community think? Better yet, is there some management software to help with this sort of thing?"
I don't mean to troll, but DAMN, how the mighty have fallen. This is probably the worst (or at least most bizarre) ask slash I've seen in a really long time.
However . . . if you're moving to a new city (or a great distance away), I've had the best luck packing priority-based. It allows you to get unpacked over a matter of days instead of hours, and creates less of a mess.
Nearby moves are totally up to you, as you usually won't box everything up and move all at once -- you can easily stay in your old place as you move, etc.
Priority is easily taken care of in one step:
1. Put everything you can't live without for a week in your suitcase. It will help you hone down what you truly need. You can always wash things at the end of the week and this scenario works for both short and long distance moves. You'll survive for a while on your basic necessities for the long run and you won't have to go digging through boxes to set you up for the short term. My long term (didn't get my things moved down for a month and a half) included clothes, a frying pan, toiletries, and my laptop.
2. Carefully pack things which are fragile and put them in boxes labeled fragile. Some will get broken, but that's what happens when you move thing in vehicles with struts/shocks.
3. Pack the rest by category and label boxes accordingly: pack books with books, kitchen ware with other kitchenware, clothes... etc. If you happen to have bookshelves, it is perfectly acceptable to put one shelf in one box and much easier to unload at the new destination. The best thing I found was to pack everything in the boxes myself, label them with big large letters where I wanted them to go (bedroom, kitchen, bookcase_1...), and then get movers to haul them into a truck and then I could just direct them at the new location where I wanted each box to go when they brought it in.
Pro of moving company:someone else does all the transporting quickly and efficiently. You could even have them do the pack yourself if you trusted them. There are companies that will pack up and box by room for you.
Con of moving company: costs money, they are not as likely to take care in transport as you, and if you go with the wrong company (ie: starving students) then you could possibly not even get your stuff returned.
Pro of transporting yourself: you could get some good exercise in for the day and that really might not be a bad thing in addition to your more careful transport.
And I don't think this is so bad to ask slashdot. I would think that a significant amount have done various moves (for either work, college, or breaking up with SOs) and among the crap are usually some rather helpful posts. Who would you sooner trust: a geek on slashdot or Martha Stewart?
"Would you rather have a playstation addicted dork wearing a star wars t-shirt?"
Spatially is the fasest way to get it in AND out of the boxes....
First, Get some paper plates and plastic cups the day before packing... you'll want something to eat on and drink out of while your plates and glasses are packed. Set aside your Playstation for break time...
Start with a few medium sized boxes in each room and label them (living room, kitchen, bedroom, etc.) Grab all of the ordinary stuff that is not fragile and get it in the boxes putting a few heavy things in the bottom and lighter things on top... distribute the heavy stuff so you'll be able to carry an individual box without getting a hernia.
Once you have the bulky items and non-fragile stuff boxed up in medium sized boxes start putting the fragile stuff in the smallest boxes you have and use packing material to fill in the holes. Be sure to label these according to the rooms as well.
If you have the original boxes for your electronics use them. Save that PS2 TV for next to last.
Each room should have 5 to 10 boxes now with 95% of your stuff packed away. If you have several small boxes with fragile stuff and packing material (styrofoam peanuts, newspaper, etc.) you might be able to consolidate them into medium sized boxes for quicker transport.
Pack the clothes and personal hygiene stuff, as well as the few cooking items you've been using while packing last. Use your suitcases or barring this the last few medium sized boxes you'll need.
Now call up the moving company with the cheapest rate and have them move all the big and or expensive items... make sure they have insurance or else they are useless to you. Don't have them bother with the smaller and more fragile items... do those yourself and save a wad of cash... just have them move the TV, hardware, furniture and boxes of programming manuals you've collected over the years, expecially if you live above ground floor.
Take several trips to move what ever is left and eat a relaxed lunch in between.
If you're moving more than a 4 hour drive away pay somebody whatever it costs to do all the moving at once in a nice big rig. Taking 4 days to move and getting no sleep is not cool.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
PDF417, a 2-D barcode capable of storing up to 1K of 7-bit Ascii data in a single symbol (at minimum error correction level). They are designed to be able to, for example, describe the contents of shipping containers. Portable scanner units exist which can read the symbols and convert them to text, although unless you are moving overseas or have way too many boxes, it won't make sense pricewise. I have written an encoder which produces symbols as PNGs (no PCL or Postscript yet, which might be better for barcode label printers) from text. You are welcome to try it out if you want to go this route (email me).
A few years ago I moved overseas with about 100 U-Haul boxes (I know, I know, really really $tupid). I labeled the boxes with a letter and a number and then wrote a master list describing the contents from the label. This system worked admirably.
And remember that it will take MONTHS to unpack everything!
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
They also provide a list of packing howto's on their website.
Assuming you're a US resident, if you don't mind bombarding yourself with mail on your first day and you have a postage meter handy, you can also move using the US Postal Service by mailing your stuff to yourself. A ludicrous idea, and probably expensive too, but remember this: you are moving it for the price of postage (WARNING: PDF), and they bring it to your door. If you have the $12.95, they will also pick it up - hell, you can even bring it to the back dock if you don't have the meter. Expect to spend a fair chunk of change to get things from point A to point B., but it's probably still less than a mover, and if you're feeling a little lucky this is very much the way to go. If anything, though, this is a good way to get certain things out of the way for the time being, but do be sure that you're there to receive them, especially if you're in an apartment. (Ask the local office how long it takes to get there.)
(A word of advice, please make sure your small appliances are well-padded and empty before you ship them. I shipped a few of my wife's things from Massachusets to California when she moved from Springfield, and while most of it survived, we unfortunately lost the laser disc player. (Our fault, we didn't dismount the LD that was in it.))
Please note, however, that due to the USPS' weight limitations (70 lbs), I'm pretty sure they will not let you ship a pre-packed hippopotamus through them.
This sig no verb.