Paula Rizzo breaks down moving into three phases: before, during, and after. She walks through a color-coded box system, back-timing schedules from her TV producer days, and shipping non-essentials early with services like LugLess. A master inventory spreadsheet keeps track of everything.
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Hey there, welcome to Inside Scoop. I'm Paula Rizzo. We're talking all about moving because it's top of mind for me. I have moved 2 times in the past year and let me tell you, it is not easy and I would not have been able to do it without my lists. And I have coordinated movers and changing of addresses and services that I use and credit cards and oh my gosh, so many things. There's so many factors that you have to think about. And of course I came across some challenges, but I also came across some really great resources. So I wanted to share those with you today so that you are less stressed as you go into any kind of move, whether it's your office move or maybe, um, your personal, personal move. And I will share all of those hacks with you in just a moment. But first I wanted to point you to my catalog of list-making fabulousness, my two books, Listful Thinking and Listful Living. I wrote two books about productivity and list-making, and there they are. Um, and so this is something that I think would be helpful to you whether you're moving or doing anything where you need to be more organized. I hope that you would check them out. I also have a list-making freebie, which I think would be really helpful because there's a starter kit that comes with it. If you go to paularizzo.com/list, and that list-making starter kit also includes a checklist for moving. So a lot of the items and the things that I'm talking about here will be listed out for you as you start thinking through what you need to do for a move because there's so many elements. And I'm also a LinkedIn Learning instructor and I have several courses about productivity and one of them in particular I think would be helpful as you're thinking through being organized when you're moving. It's called The Power of Lists. To Get Stuff Done. There's a QR code right there, uh, where you can go ahead and watch it. Or if you are, you know, more like you want to go to a website, you could go to paularizzo.com/linkedin or use that QR code there, and it will list out all of the other courses that I have through LinkedIn. Listen, I want to hear from you throughout the show, so if you have a question, even if you're watching the replay, I'd love for you to just leave it in the chat boxes below. I'll be checking. And if you have a friend or someone who you know is moving, maybe you're not moving right now, but you say, hey, actually, you know what, so-and-so would really love to know more about how to do this and be less stressed, tag them. Be a friendly friend and tag them below and make sure that they know all about this episode. I would very much appreciate it. Okay, so without further ado, let's get to the moving hacks. Now I have decided we're gonna do before the move, during the move, after the move, because I found that that was the most— the easiest way to think about this is to chunk it out because it's such a huge thing. So let's talk about before the move first. So the first thing that I did before I moved from my apartment in Manhattan was that I had accumulated a whole bunch of things. And so I hired professional organizers and you may think, oh well, I don't really need that. I know how to organize things. I can— it was unbelievable. You know, you want people who are even better at it than you are and someone who will come in and run the show. So they came in. This was a recommendation from a friend of mine who had used organizers. They came in and they helped me and my husband go through literally every square inch of that apartment. And it was not a large apartment, but we had accumulated things because we had lived there for almost 10 years. So we went through all of the things. And the best part was that not only did they help me fold everything in the Marie Kondo way so that when I put my things away I could find everything, it was beautiful and I tried to keep it that way, but also they took all of the stuff that I didn't want, that I wanted to donate with them. So at the end of the day, however many hours— and it took a few hours, I would say it took about 5 hours, let's say, uh, after it was done, I was done with it, right? I didn't then have the task of having to say, okay, now next I'm gonna have to move this stuff over and go, you know, donate it or figure out where I'm gonna bring it. They just did that all for me. So it was well worth it. And even now, we did that almost 2 years ago, it took a long time for us to finally move, um, in the end. But even my husband said, you know what, that was, I think, the best money that we spent because it was really organized. It kept us sort of at the bare minimum of things. We didn't really buy much more after that. We knew exactly what we needed. It was a great way because once we did move, there wasn't all this extra stuff that then we had to go through because that's very stressful and that can add a lot of time and effort that, you know, you might need to use elsewhere. So I was glad to get that over with even before we knew the moving date. So the next thing is, once you do know the moving date, you have to think through how you will execute. And so this comes from my days as a TV producer. We would backtime a show, which means, you know, when the show gets off the air, 11:00 PM, let's say if you're, you know, doing a 10:00 PM newscast, you know it's going to end at 11:00. That's like your drop-dead deadline. It's going to go off the air with or without you. You better be ready. So then you have to go backwards and say, OK, all the things that I add to this hour need to add up. So that I get off the air on time. It's the same thing with a move. It's the same thing with anything that you're planning. Think about, okay, the date, the drop-dead deadline is moving day, so everything has to go before that, right? What are your checklists? What are the things you have to make sure to do? Uh, you know, you have to call the, the, the movers. You have to, you know, make sure if you live in a building, which like I did, you had to make sure that you were, um, you know, able to move at a certain day. You have to have the elevator reserved, all of those things. You may not think of them right away, so it's good have this list and be ongoing so that you can go through and add to it, um, as you start thinking of it. And then I would go a step further and take that big list and then assign yourself or other people the tasks almost every day. So you have a few things that you're doing to set yourself up for success for the actual move date. Because if you wait till the last second, you're going to be super stressed out. If you do it all yourself, you're going to be stressed out. So I want to make sure that you're not that, so that you have a few things things on your plate every single day. And I, I was very specific about doing that and being able to say, okay, I could do these two things today, but be realistic because that's the important part. Um, and then I shipped a whole bunch of items ahead of time. So I also moved— I was in Miami for quite a while, almost 3 years. And so when we knew we were moving back to New York, I used a company called LugLess, which I thought was fantastic because it's actually meant for if you're going on vacation. You would ship your luggage ahead of time so that it meets you at your destination. So it was actually wonderful because I was able to pack a lot of things that I didn't need right now. I could pack it up in my suitcase. They came and got it FedEx. So you can't just ship a suitcase FedEx. You have to have some sort of, uh, you know, a lot of times people do this with their, with their golf clubs, right? Uh, there's Shipsticks. My husband uses it all the time that they ship They ship your, your, your, uh, golf clubs for you and they use FedEx. You can't just really, if you were to do that, it's very expensive. So this way you're able to get a better price. And then Lugless is the company that I used and they track it for you. And I will say that they did deliver everything early, which is great and sounds great, but if you don't have somebody on the other end waiting for this or able to receive it, that could be stressful. So you just want to keep that in mind that they were great and efficient, but you just might want to, you know, think through the timing of it a little bit. So those are the things to do before the move. Now when the actual move happens, talking about packing, you can hire movers, right? So of course I hired movers and not everyone does. I've spoken to a whole bunch of people who have done lots of moves themselves, which I think that is not something that I want to do. It's stressful enough. I don't want to have to also be worried about moving boxes and all of that. Um, but you could, if you wanted to, hire someone to come pack for you. You. And I've had friends who have done that as well, that they have been able to, to do like, let's say, your kitchen. You don't want to go through and wrap up all of that stuff. It's time-consuming, it's annoying, it might not make it. You could hire them. Okay, you're going to pay a premium to do that, right, to have them come and spend the hours to do it. But you could if you needed to. I chose not to do that. I chose to do the packing myself with my husband, and then they came and they moved all the stuff for us. It was awesome. So definitely make sure to do that. And what I did for the movers and for myself to be organized was I used a color-coded system. It was really simple. I went to the drugstore and I just bought some little stickies, uh, little, you know, little things, all different colors. I got 4 different colors and I— each box I labeled with a number and I put whatever color was associated with a specific room. So let's say, you know, the kitchen was green. So all the green, they knew all of the green boxes went into the kitchen so that when we moved, when we actually got to the new space, they didn't have to ask me a million questions. Where is this going? Where is that going? What's happening here? So I had everything color-coded and in the new space I had sort of like a key up on the wall when the movers got here so they knew which rooms which colors. And I had every— on every door I had what color that was. Since, you know, there was nothing in the room, they wouldn't know that that's a bedroom or that's an office or whatever it is. So it made it really efficient and it made it easy on me on moving day. And the movers were like, this was incredible, we really loved it. So you want to be kind to your movers as well, and they'll be much more efficient and fast if you do some of the work ahead of time. The other thing that I did too is as I was creating those— that color-coded list. And every time we would pack a box, I also had a spreadsheet on my computer and I used lists to pack each room. So every room that I had, I knew exactly what was in each, each box. So when I got back to the new apartment, if I needed to find, I don't know, a spatula, let's just say, I didn't need to open every box. I went to my spreadsheet and I did like Ctrl+F and I found where the spatula was because I was able to search for it. It made life really easy, especially if you don't want to be opening every single box. I also put a few notes like on, on my spreadsheet of which boxes I needed to open first. So to be very mindful of the way that you pack and know that, OK, there's certain things that you're not going to need for a while. That's fine. But what are the things that you will need right away? Right. Linens and towels and things like that. Put a note on that one and label it so that you know, OK, this one I need for today. What I also did was I packed an overnight bag. For me and my husband that I had and I kept with me so that I had at least like 2 days worth of clothes in case I didn't get to all the unpacking and all that. So that made it a little bit easier when we did actually do the move. Um, the other piece of, of moving is then moving into the new space and designing the space to work for you. Since every place is different, uh, you know, you want to be mindful of how your stuff is going to fit. So you want to think through that ahead of time if you can. So when you're designing your new space, you really want to think through, um, you might not think of everything. So what I did was I actually hired a virtual designer. And I know that sounds very snooty, like, oh, look at you getting a designer. It was super, super affordable, and it was so helpful because what I did was I used a company called Havenly. And what you do is you take the design of the, um, of, or each of the floor plans, let's say, of the rooms, and you take measurements and then you send it to them and you say, okay, this room is going to be— I did it for my office. This room is going to be an office. These are the things that this office needs to be. Now, I have not finished that plan because this is not what the office will look like, but I have the plan. I just need to do now the shopping. But I was able to say to the designer, okay, so I need an office desk for myself. I need a desk for my husband. We're not in here at the same time, but we both work from home and we would like to have a space in here as well if we do have guests. So a pull-out couch or something like that. It's a tall order. It's a lot, especially if we didn't— and we didn't have this furniture previously, so it was all starting from scratch. So it was nice to have somebody who could help you design and help you think through the dimensions and what will work for what you need. So I would highly suggest doing that. And then if you are looking to optimize your space, this is really important too, because in my apartment in Manhattan, I had a lot more wall space. I I know that sounds funny, but this apartment, even though it's larger, it doesn't have— it has more closet space, which is great, but I don't have as much space for actual, like, physical furniture that I used to put things in, or bookshelves and cases and things like that. So I've had to optimize the closet space that I have. And the closets are great to have, but if it's just one long hook, it doesn't really do very much for me, right? If I don't have that much hanging clothes. So I went to The Container Store, which I'm a big fan of and I, I really do love. I brought all the plans of how big each closet was, and I sat down with a designer for an hour, and she mapped out what we could do. I told her exactly what I needed to fit in each space, like, here's what luggage I have. I was like very specific. I was like, here's how big this is, here's how big that is. And they helped me to design an awesome, uh, solution. And this is— I'm renting, I'm not even, I'm not even, you know, owning this property, so For me though, it was important to be able to optimize the space. I didn't go crazy, you know, spending, you know, tons of money. I wanted to just have something that would be workable, um, that would make my life better, uh, and make sure that our stuff was where we needed it, where we could find it. And then they also do install, so you could install on your own. You could have all of the stuff shipped to you and you could install it, but I was like, not gonna do that. That doesn't seem like the best use of my time to figure out how to do this. So we had them install it and it worked out awesome. And this is the second time that I've used them because I in my apartment in New York City as well, one that I had owned. And that one, I went all out. I got all the bells and whistles. I had a little tray for all of my— for all my jewelry. Like, I, I still— I miss that closet. You're welcome to the people who bought that apartment because those closets were awesome. So just to optimize your space, whether it be closets or anything else, just kind of think through. Because the thing is, you're going to get comfortable in the apartment or the house, and then you're not going to do it. So it's important for you to sort of start off with a, with a good, with a good, uh, you know, organization, uh, from the very beginning. And then also to have some lists to update your addresses. Now this is something that I started to make a list of, and if you do get my List Making Starter Kit, you'll see that in the moving list there are a couple of items in there like updating addresses and places you should update your addresses. So if you go to paularizzo.com/list, you can grab that List Making Starter Kit for moving and all different kinds of things as well. But to update your address and to be thinking through in the days and weeks before your move, what are the things that you're using most, right? Are you getting subscriptions to a magazine? Are you getting, you know, your medicine delivered to you? Or, you know, anything. And just be mindful of that as it's happening so you can start to make a list. So when you do move, it's very easy, you can just go through and update all of those easily, and then you don't have things being shipped to the wrong places and all of that. So I hope that some of these have, you know, triggered a little bit of, uh, ease in your mind to make your life a little bit easier. I would say the overall thing is just to think ahead as much as you possibly can to set these things in motion so that when the actual move happens, you're, you're ready for it. You know, you, you color-coded your boxes, you did your work up ahead of time, let the movers do their thing, and then you can just move into your beautiful space and enjoy your new place. And again, I would love for you to check out that list-making starter kit because I know that'll be helpful for particularly for a move, but anything that you're doing and, you know, that you want to optimize. But if you go to paularizzo.com/list, and I am looking forward to hearing your questions and comments, please leave them in the chat boxes below and I will see you next time.
