A template in the iPhone app. It opens a 10-item checklist under the editable project name Moving house.
How to open itBefore the move
The before-move list is about bookings and accounts more than about shopping. It is also the part with real deadlines, because the things on it are other people’s diaries.
- The removal van or company, booked as early as the date allows. It depends on someone else being free on a date that is already fixed.
- Electricity, gas, water and internet arranged for the new address, with any broadband installation treated as its own appointment.
- Mail redirection, which takes time to start and is easier to set up before the move than after it.
- Boxes, tape, labels and bubble wrap, ordered in time to pack with rather than on the day.
- Everyone who needs the new address: work, bank, insurer, doctor, dentist, licence, electoral roll.
- Access and parking at both ends, including whether a large van can get near either door.
Internet is easy to leave until after the move, and its timing depends on an installation date you do not set. It belongs on the same list as the van, not on the list for the first weekend.
Moving day
The day itself is a logistics problem. Much of it is about what travels separately from the van, and what you can reach without opening a box.
- Travels with you
- Documents, keys, chargers, medication, a change of clothes, the kettle and something to eat. Not in the van, where they end up behind a wall of furniture.
- The toolkit
- Whatever takes the beds apart is what puts them back together. It should be the last thing loaded and the first thing out.
- Mattress bags and wrapping
- Protection goes on before the journey, not at the other end. A mattress is easy to tear or dirty in a loaded van, and awkward to put right afterwards.
- Readings as you leave
- Take the final readings at the old property and photograph them. It is the same job as the one at the other end, and it closes the old account cleanly.
Label boxes by the room they are going to rather than by what is in them. The van empties faster, and the first evening becomes a search of one room instead of all of them.
As soon as you arrive
There is a short window at the new property, before anything is unpacked, when several jobs are easier than they will be an hour later.
- Take the meter readings immediately on arrival, and photograph each meter before you start unpacking.
- Note where the meters, the stopcock and the fuse board are, while the rooms are still empty enough to see them.
- Check the heating and hot water work, and that any internet appointment is still on the date you were given.
- Clean the two rooms about to be filled — the kitchen and the bathroom — before the boxes land in them.
- Make up the beds early, while there is still energy left in the day.
Why the readings come first. A photograph taken on arrival is a record of what you did and did not use, and it is worth having before a single box obscures the cupboard the meter is in. The template marks that line Urgent for the same reason.
Borrow, collect and leave behind
- Boxes
- Worth asking for before buying. Shops, local groups and people who have moved recently are all worth asking, and crates can be hired rather than bought.
- Hands
- More people for fewer hours is the simplest way to shorten a move, and it is worth asking weeks ahead rather than days.
- Cleaning supplies
- Needed at both ends, which is the reason to keep them out of the van rather than in it.
- What not to take
- A move is an opportunity not to transport something. Deciding before packing is easier than deciding after unpacking.
Open it as a plan
Everything above works on paper. If you would rather keep it on your phone — with each line carrying its own price, priority, notes, deadline and a link to the thing you found — the iPhone app ships a Moving house template that starts you with a 10-item checklist instead of an empty project.
- Add a project
In the app, tap the + control in the centre of the tab bar. Its accessibility label is “Add a project”.
- Start from a template
The “New project” sheet opens. Use the “Start from a template” row rather than typing a name into an empty project.
- Pick Moving house
Choose the “Moving house” chip. The sheet says how many starter items it will add and pre-fills the project name, which you can edit here.
- Create project
Tap “Create project”. The project opens with its checklist already written, and every line is yours to rename, delete or re-prioritise.
Moving house is the chip in the template picker. The project name it pre-fills uses the same words, and that part is yours to change before or after you create the project.
What the Moving house template starts you with
Suggestions, and several of these are tasks rather than purchases. The van, the utilities, the redirection and the readings are things to arrange, which is exactly why they belong on the same list as the boxes.
- Boxes & tape
- Bubble wrap
- Removal van / companyUrgent
- Arrange electricity, gas, water & internetUrgent
- Cleaning supplies
- Mattress bags
- Labels & marker
- Mail redirectionUrgent
- Toolkit for reassembly
- Take meter readings on arrivalUrgent
What you can change. Every line is a suggestion: rename it, delete it, or add something the template never mentioned. Priority is one of Urgent, Normal or Can Wait, so nothing has to be deleted to be put off.
Those lines belong to three different days, so it is worth setting their deadlines that way:
- Before
The van, the utilities and the mail redirection. These take the earliest deadlines on the list.
- On the day
Boxes, wrapping, mattress bags, labels and the toolkit — plus the final readings where you are leaving.
- On arrival
The meter readings at the new property, and the cleaning supplies you deliberately kept out of the van.
Plannli is an iPhone app. Nothing on this page needs it.