This post was written by Ashley, a brand new contributor to Genpink who just moved from Midwest to Texas. As you can imagine moving your entire life across several states can be quite chaotic. So, she’s sharing her tips on how she stayed organized during the whole process! This is a sponsored post written on behalf of BIC® 4-Color™.

I recently moved. More importantly, I recently moved across 3 states by myself for a new job! Needless to say, my life has been hectic lately and staying organized during this journey has been an ongoing learning process. Here are A few of my personal organizational preferences mixed with some new things I learned.

4 tips for keeping your move moving and your head on straight!

1. Logistics: The physical moving of items is only one part of this process! Believe me, I learned just how many logistical To-Do’s that come with a move during my recent cross-country adventure. Coordinating all these tactics and details can seem overwhelming but I learned that I was able to keep my head on straight by maintaining an ongoing moving check list & important dates planner.

I’m a visual person and I love color coding things when I’m organizing, so using my new BIC® 4-Color™ pen (4 Inseparable Colors in 1 Pen) was quite useful. Organizing all my to-do’s suddenly seemed a little less daunting and a little more colorful! The BIC® 4-Color™ pen has four different color personalities all inseparable within one pen. How great is that? Because when you have 900 other things to keep track of, who needs 10 different pens to add to the clutter? It really helped me stay on track by being able to visually recognizing what attention each task required.

The blue was my “serious” HAS to be done tasks most likely because to me, blue (kinda purplish) seems like a regal, no nonsense type personality. I think it’s quite fitting since BIC© says “Blue is the boss” of the 4 colors, they say each one has a different personality and blue “knows that he’s important” Once I got something done & could check it off the list, I was happy to use the BIC® 4-Color™ pen’s red color personality to check those boxes! Red was my favorite to use because it reminds me of being happy. So of COURSE I used it when I was done with a task! Hopefully my check-list below will give you a good idea of some things you will need to plan to accomplish during your move.

Check out these hilarious videos about how awesome this BIC® 4-Color™ pen can be:

Spinning:
Crammed:

2. Channeling your inner Eminem: Clean those skeletons out of your closet! Ok, I am not a science major and do not have actual skeletons in my closet to clean out but I did have other junk that I determined was not worth moving a 2nd, 3rd or 4th time. Moving from home into a dorm or from apartment to apartment can be the best time to evaluate all your stuff. I personally made my decision based on two guidelines:

1. Have I moved this random box of who knows what before?
2. Have I used this thing in the past 6 months?

Trust me, when you are moving, the last thing you want to think about is the fact that you have 5 more boxes to get up to that third floor apartment and you don’t even know what is in those three boxes! Especially if it will just sit in the back of your closet and take up room. I found that a majority of the items that I had trouble throwing away or getting rid of was old bedding, shoes (a girl has a hard time parting with her favorite accessory, so sue me.) and old decorations. If you’re like me, the thought always pops in your head, “ I’ll save these old blankets for guests or I’ll wear those shoes next summer for sure.” Then, I never do it! These things end up sitting in my closet as I forget about them and move on to new things. So, go through these things and donate to your local charities, Goodwill or Salvation Army locations. You will thank me later.

3. Label, Label and Label again: Now you are ready to start putting all your precious belongings in boxes. During this part of the process I started putting things in boxes and then diligently labeling what was in each box. To me, that made sense but as I started thinking about all the wonderful people who were helping me make this move possible, I realized they would not know where anything would need to go and I envisioned my new apartment having a mountain of boxes in the living room. To help with this, I then began labeling not only what was in each box but the room I wanted each box delivered to as its final destination. In the end, this helped everyone feel more useful as they moved boxes into my new place, they could see it was going in the living room and they put the box there. Really helped to make unpacking less of a nightmare. I highly suggest that in this case, over sharing is non-existent. Label those boxes to your heart’s desire and it will help you out once you get to your new place. I used a black sharpie to be able to write big/bold room labels and then I purchased mailing labels & used my new BIC® 4-Color™ pen to let myself know what was in each box. Yes, I color coordinated each room. I found that the visual color cues helped me remember just what I had put in each box. As you will see below, I chose blue to represent my bedroom because it is the accent color of my room!

4. The Aftermath: Once you are all moved out of your current place, there may be a few dust bunnies (or in my case a few dust bunnies hiding amongst a forest of bobby pens, socks and dog toys). What I have learned in my past 5 moves in my adult life is to divide and conquer. If you have some roomies then get together and chat about who will clean what areas of the apartment or house. Set some timelines and gather the cleaning supplies (Clorox cleaning wipes are my best friends during moving time.) On the flip side, if you are ridin’ solo in your place then I suggest a clean as you go method. I finished packing my closet a week before the moving truck was set to show up. So, I cleaned it from top to bottom and then shut the door with a sense of accomplishment that helped me stay motivated throughout the packing process.

I hope these tips help you in your move. Anyone have some other tips they can share? I’m sure this won’t be my last move.

BIC® 4-Color™ pen is available on Staples or Amazon. Be sure to check out BIC® on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that make Genpink successful!