Learnt from this packing experience: You will underestimate. Get a good deal more than you think you will need, of everything.

We ordered new boxes for books, and thought we had bought way more than we could possibly need. They’re all full now. We brought out all the boxes from our previous move, and thought the same – there’s no chance we will fill those. Guess what – we did. We thought we’d need a day, and now we’ve been busy for three.

Packing is more pleasant when you don’t have to worry about running out of time. We could have squeezed most of the work into one very long day, and cut corners: quickly stuff things in a box, instead of wrapping and putting them down one by one. Now we’ve been able to go out for lunch every day, and spend time in the evenings doing other things.

The same goes for packing materials. We have enough resealable plastic bags to last us through this move and probably five more. And it’s nice. There is no need to stop and think, “Can I put this in a bag, or will we need them for something else?” There is no hesitation. We can put each rolled-up cable in a bag of its own, as well as each bottle from the bathroom, and each widget and doodad from our desk drawers.