Make Moving Easy With a Moving Checklist

The first thing Niamh Cahill did after she signed a contract to buy her new home in New Jersey was to map out a moving checklist.

"I had to break it down, to think small at first," she said. "If I thought about the whole move, I would have been completely overwhelmed." So she called the movers, set a date, and then started planning.

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for counting down to moving day. The important thing is to make a plan, says Audrey Dickson, quotation analyst with U-Pack, a national moving company based in Fort Smith, Ark.

"We are a land of procrastinators, and unless there is a deadline, we won't do it," says Dickson, who for five years has been advising stressed-out people on how to pack for long-distance moves.