Moving week is chaotic. You’re living out of half-packed boxes and trying to hold a normal life together while everything around you is a mess. Getting through that final week in one piece comes down to a few things: sorting your logistics early, packing in the right order, and saving your energy for the most important bits. Here’s how to handle the week before moving house.
1. Confirm your moving strategy
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If you haven’t booked a removalist yet, this step is urgent. Removals in Brisbane usually get booked two to four weeks out, especially in the summer and school holidays. Get on the phone with a removalist first thing.
If you’ve already booked, confirm the details a week before moving day. Chat to them about timing, access, and anything unusual about your property, like stairs or furniture that needs disassembly. This will help them plan and prepare for the day.
Write down the plan so you don’t second-guess yourself mid-week.
2. Pack in the right order
If you’re a late packer, a few days before the move isn’t enough. You need at least a week. And when you do start, the order matters. A lot of people grab whatever’s in front of them and then spend the last few days digging through boxes for things they still need. Start with what you definitely won’t touch before you leave. These could be books, seasonal items, spare linen, or anything decorative. Kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom should be packed last.
By mid-week, you should only have the essentials unpacked; the things you’re actively using. Everything else should be packed and labelled by room and contents. Labelling by room makes it easier for your removalist and means you’re not opening ten boxes looking for the one thing you need on the first night.
Pack an essentials bag that you keep with you during moving day. Fill it with chargers, medications, a change of clothes, toiletries, important documents, and something to eat. This bag will save you on moving night when you’re too tired to unpack anything properly.
3. Make the difficult decisions early
Decision fatigue is going to hit hard in the moving week. You’re picking up every item you own and deciding what to do with it and where to put it. It’s exhausting. After a few days, you’ll be making those calls at near-zero capacity, which is how things you actually wanted sadly end up in the bin.
Front-load the decisions. If there are items you’re genuinely unsure about, deal with them early in the week when you still have bandwidth. And give yourself some sort of cutoff: if it takes more than one minute to decide, for example, it goes.
4. Spread out the admin work
Change of address, paperwork, utility disconnections, school notifications, it all needs to happen. But it doesn’t all need to happen on the same day. Spread admin tasks across the week in small batches so they don’t pile up into one overwhelming afternoon.
If you’re going to do one thing in the last week, you should set up mail redirection with Australia Post. Anything addressed to your old place will be automatically forwarded to your new one for a set period (one, three, six, or twelve months). So if you’re in the middle of updating your address or forget to update it somewhere, the mail still reaches you while you catch up.
5. Protect the basics
Sometimes during a busy moving week, we forget about sleep, food, and water. But these things are non-negotiable. Your ability to make good decisions, stay patient with the people around you, and actually get through moving day is directly tied to how well you’re functioning physically. Eating crackers over a box at midnight isn’t a personality trait; it’s a sign you’ve let the move take over.
Build in at least one proper meal a day. Keep water nearby. Try to be in bed at a reasonable hour, even if the packing isn’t done. The more tired you are while packing, the more things you break and the more bad decisions you make.
6. Save energy for moving day
Moving day is a full day of physical and mental work. There’s no shortcutting it. If you’ve exhausted yourself in the lead-up, you’ll really feel it when it counts.
So don’t try to do everything in that last week. The house doesn’t need to be spotless before you leave. Not every decision needs to be made before the last day; save the non-urgent decisions for after you’ve settled into the new place. Pace yourself so you’re not completely wrecked before the truck even arrives.
7. Quick recap: surviving the week before you move
Sort your removalist before the last week starts if you can. Pack in order, starting with what you won’t need. Make the hard decisions early while you still have the headspace. Spread the admin across the week. And, most importantly, look after your wellbeing and energy.
It’s going to be full-on regardless. But there’s a difference between a hard week and one that leaves you completely wrecked before moving day even starts.
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