Moving at short notice: what to do in the first three days

The landlord is selling and wants the flat empty when the month ends. The new job starts in three weeks in another city. The purchase of the new place completes earlier than planned. In each case the news comes with a date attached, and the date is close.

Almost everyone reacts the same way: that same evening they start filling boxes. It feels like the most useful thing to do, because you can see it. But packing is the only part of a move that depends on you alone, so it is also the only part you can leave until late. Everything else depends on someone else, and every day that passes leaves fewer free dates. That is what the first three days are for.

Day one is for phone calls

Before you open a single wardrobe, make the calls. There are four, and the order matters.

• Whoever moves the furniture. A removal company or a hired van, but decided today: at weekends the convenient dates are the first to go. If you are not sure which of the two suits you, the criteria for choosing fit on one page.
• The parking permit. If the van has to stop in the street, the permit takes time that cannot be shortened: days go by between the request and the signs going up. Ask today and it may be ready in time. Ask next week and it may not.
• The utilities. Cancelling or transferring your electricity, gas and internet at the place you are leaving, and setting them up at the new one. The internet connection is the one most at risk of arriving late, so it is the first to request.
• The boxes. If you rent them, book them now, the same morning as the van: that is also a date you choose but someone else has to act on.

At short notice there is one case where a removal company stops being an option and becomes the answer. If you have a piano, a narrow staircase with no lift or a back that has already given you trouble, and on top of that only a few days, call one and stop worrying about it. There is still a middle way: they do the transport and you do the packing, so you pay for the trip and fill the boxes yourself, in the evenings you have.

Day two is for deciding what stays behind

When time is short, anything you do not take is the biggest saving you have: it is one thing fewer to pack, load and put away. The catch is that getting rid of things takes time, and each way out needs its own lead time. Selling takes weeks, and with two ahead of you it is not worth counting on.

So on day two you walk round the flat with a sheet of paper, and you deal only with the big things: furniture, mattresses, appliances. Next to each one write one of three words: coming, give away, bulky collection. Then make the calls that follow straight away, because the bulky waste collection and the friend who is coming for the bookcase each have a date of their own, and it needs fixing today.

The small things are not decided now. You choose books, clothes and kitchen things as you pack, one shelf at a time. If on day two you stop over every mug, by day five you still have not closed a single box.

Day three is for starting at the back

Now you pack, and you start with what you will not use before the move: the back of the wardrobes, the top shelf, the cellar, the clothes for the other season. These are boxes you can fill without taking anything away from daily life. The kitchen and bathroom come last, and stay open until the evening before.

With little time, it matters to know how many evenings you really need. The simplest way is to time half an hour of work, as the article on how long packing takes explains, and then multiply. If the numbers do not add up, the first place to look is the steps that fill nothing. Before a cardboard box takes a single item, it has to be opened out, folded and taped shut at the bottom; once it is full, it has to be taped shut on top. They apply to every box, so they grow with the number of boxes.

A Cangubox arrives ready to use, and its lid closes with two hinged flaps that hook onto each other: you fill it and close it, with no tape. Then the crates stack, and you load the stack onto the Dolly, included in every rental, and push it instead of carrying the crates one by one.

Where to be precise, and where not

People with months ahead of them can afford perfect order. People with little time have to choose where to be precise, and there are two places.

The first is on every box: which room of the new home it has to end up in. You do not write on a rented crate: use a tag, or a number with a note on your phone. It is the piece of information that saves hours when unloading.

The second is the bag for the first few days, packed before everything else and kept out of the boxes: two changes of clothes, medicines, chargers, documents, what you need for the bathroom.

The rest can be rough. A box with things from two rooms in it is not a problem; a box with no indication at all is.

So, this evening, a sheet of paper and four lines: the day one calls, in the order you will make them. Tomorrow morning you make them, and the boxes wait for day three.