Moving can be a stressful affair, but with some planning and preparation, you can keep all the fuss and muss to a minimum. Labelling your boxes properly will go a long way towards reducing confusion on moving day, both for you and your movers.
Here’s how you can easily label your boxes to help you keep your belongings organised and make sure everything arrives in one piece.
1. Pack by room, label by colour
For any labelling system to work, you’ll first have to decide on how you want to pack your boxes. A simple way to organise your belongings is to place items that go to the same room in the same box. It keeps packing simple and intuitive, but organised enough for detailed labelling.
Then, assign each room a unique colour and label all the boxes for each room accordingly. Using a specific colour for every room will make the labels easier to interpret from a distance. You can also colour your boxes on more than one side to make them easy to identify even when stacked.
2. Number your boxes and keep an inventory
In addition to coloured labels, you can also number each of your boxes. This will help you keep better track of the boxes, so that you’ll notice if any of them are missing on moving day. If you want to go the extra mile, you can also list the contents of each box in a master inventory list.
Keeping a detailed inventory can be painstaking, but it can save you the trouble of searching multiple boxes for a specific item. You will know exactly what item has been packed and which box it is in. If a box goes missing during your move, you will have a record of what is in the missing box, saving you time and trouble.
3. Use waterproof permanent markers
Coloured markers are a versatile way to label your boxes. They’re cheap, easy to find, and they don’t need as much forethought as printed packing labels. You can scribble out labels as you pack, and make corrections as and when necessary. Get waterproof permanent markers to make sure your writing doesn’t smudge under unfavourable moving conditions, like heavy rain and mischievous kids.
4. Keep your labels minimal but informative
Details are important, but so is clarity. Keeping it short and simple with your labels makes them easy to read, which in turn makes it easier for you to determine the contents of each box. It’s usually enough to label each box with the following details: destination room (i.e. Kitchen), a brief description of contents (i.e. Dishes), and handling instructions (i.e. FRAGILE).
You might be tempted to label all boxes “FRAGILE” so that your movers will handle them with care, but that’s not necessarily a good idea. Handling instructions like “FRAGILE” should only be used when necessary to ensure the items that actually need to be handled with extra care, does.
At the end of the day, both you and your movers want to get all your belongings to where they’re supposed to go, safe and sound, with as little hassle as humanly possible. A great way to start would be to communicate with each other effectively, via properly packed and labeled boxes.
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