A Guide to Moving

Moving is entirely exhausting, in case you didn't know. 
I come from a family of movers, so I am used to it, but, obviously, moving is much more fun when you're a child (as everything in life is). We moved various times and it was always exciting to get a new room furnished and painted and I loved it; however, as my man and I are in the process of moving at the moment, I feel rather disillusioned by the whole process. 
Later this week, my man and I will have packed up our lives and head to Vienna to start a new life there and we have been boxing up our lives in the past days (which actually means I have been boxing up, he was finished after twenty minutes; seriously, some people don't have lives...). 
I simply cannot believe how many things I have already accumulated in my respectively short life (I mean, a quarter of a century is not that old, is it?) and I can say with great certainty (or surety, according to the POTUS) that I definitely have a severe case of BMA (books and magazines addiction). All my floor is covered in my books, some of them dating back from me as a young child. The thing with books is that I simply cannot throw them out (except for 50 Shades of Grey, but simply because it was the worst book I have ever read and would have genuinely felt ashamed if someone found it on my bookshelf). 

However, moving is also a very cleansing process in which you can dispose of superfluous items you got over the years (like presents from unwanted aunts or so - not naming anyone) and you can relieve your wardrobe of a couple of pounds, which means you can go shopping! 
I always thought moving to be a liberating process upon which you can review your life and shed with the things you don't need anymore and as I have done it a couple of times and am doing it right now, I will give you some advice on what to do or avoid when moving. 

Prepare your move and ensure you have enough canisters to put your stuff into
It hurts to buy boxes because they are rather expensive, but it is necessary to be well equipped before you embark on the tedious task of putting everything together for the move. Preparation is key and it is true for moving too. Make sure you take good boxes which are strong enough and if you want to have a box entirely filled with books (which I cannot recommend), use wooden boxes or strong carton boxes usually used for fruit. Also provide enough wrapping paper for fragile items.
For clothes and non-fragile items, you can also use big black bin liners, which won't rip easily and save you some bucks. You can close them with a cable tie. 

Label everything!
Upon reviewing your stuff, you will first think it's actually not that much, but you are highly mistaken, believe me. You can also be sure to need some item desperately and then having to go through all the boxes until you find it hidden in the farthest back corner of the last box, which is highly frustrating. 
Put everything that belongs together in the same box and label them, and not only with rooms. Don't simply write 'kitchen', but also write a little list (either directly on the box or on a post-it), of what generally hides inside and stick it on. You will thank yourself later.
You can also use colour code post-its to label the boxes from important to not-so-important. This is specifically useful if you don't know if you can transport everything in one go and ensure that the most vital things you will need are transported first. 

Be radical with throwing out junk
I have already addressed it, moving is a great moment to throw away junk you simply don't need anymore or which you have lost interest in. This is specifically true for your wardrobe (at least in my case), but also technical items can gather (old TVs, receivers, etc) and it is the ideal point of life to get rid of everything. Don't think you might still wear this some time, simply throw it out because you won't, and if you might, you can buy new clothes. We don't live in times anymore where you need to hold on to old things. Chuck them out and feel liberated!
For clothes, you can give them to a charity shop if they are still in good shape and clothes store like H&M also take old clothes to recycle them for their own clothes. 

Prepare the transport (financially and organisationally) 
The most expensive and terrible thing for our move will be logistics. Unless you are super-lucky and know someone who owns a ginormous truck and is happy to lend a hand, you will have to think about organising transport. Nowadays, you can rent trucks for moving, but they are terribly expensive and are unreliable (for our last move, the truck simply didn't show up and they didn't even apologise or provide another one, on the move before they charged us with 5000 Euros, refusing to understand this had to be wrong until my dad showed them that, within the time we used it, we would have had to drive in circles with 600 km/h to achieve that kind of gas use - this was the company Sixt, by the way, for both incidents). 
Ideally, you know someone who knows someone and you can get one via a private person where you only have to pay for gas (especially if you're moving long distance, like we do). 

Have enough people around on moving day
Moving is physically exhausting, so make sure you time your day of moving with a lot of people being available to help put everything inside the truck and out again. Also make sure you are well-rested and drink and eat enough because it is really exhausting and nerve-wrecking, especially because you can count on something not going according to plan - something always does. 

Finally, don't allow to much time to pass unpacking
You have finally reached your destination and, after unpacking your vital items, you lose your flow and stop unpacking. Make sure you unpack everything within a week or so, otherwise you will still have unpacked boxes when you're moving out again (which, kind of, is really practical). You want to feel home, so get everything out, find a spot and put the carton boxes somewhere, ready for the next move...