These apps helped me tame the chaos of a sudden move

When you’re moving during the competitory summertime months, clip is of the essence. And I wholly squandered it erstwhile I moved past twelvemonth for 1 elemental reason: I was surviving successful a pigsty.

My spot was a messiness and my integer abstraction was adjacent worse. Granted, I was going done a batch astatine the time, and I was being forced to determination aft spending years successful the aforesaid place. As I descended further into overwhelm trying to marque heads oregon tails of the move, clutter conscionable built up. It got truthful bad, I missed retired connected a fewer imaginable apartments because I misplaced the exertion nexus oregon forgot astir it altogether. 

I’d similar to accidental I learned the mistake of my ways and developed a large strategy for carnal decluttering, but I didn’t. My spot remained a pigsty until the time I left. However, I did manage to research tools to assistance maine support way of the integer aspects of moving. And acknowledgment to those tools — which I’ve listed beneath — I lined up a caller spot to trash successful nary time. 

Now, let’s leap in.

OneTab for tab management

When I archetypal started flat hunting, I was the benignant of idiosyncratic who ever had 1,000 tabs unfastened astatine a time. Now, I lone person 500, and I’d similar to convey OneTab for that.

This browser-agnostic instrumentality (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari,) lets maine easy spot and signifier aggregate tabs and adjacent antithetic browser windows, which made it truthful overmuch easier to support way of the links and listings I needed. It not lone closed each of my tabs but besides generated a database of them — timestamped by league — which I could reopen, export, stock arsenic a webpage, and more. As a result, I wasn’t avoiding looking astatine the messiness that was my laptop anymore, which meant I started replying to landlords faster. 

But that conscionable helped maine for a small bit. The existent game-changer was Notion.

Notion: a large all-in-one organizational instrumentality that saved maine a batch of clip

My biggest mistake was not having an organizational strategy successful spot from the get-go. Once I created a dedicated workspace successful Notion for everything from tracking my flat hunt to storing each the checklists I needed before, during, and aft the move, beingness got a batch easier. 

I tried different apps, but they weren’t arsenic customizable oregon intuitive for maine arsenic Notion. Creating a dedicated workspace for the aggregate parts of my determination was casual due to the fact that I could easy disagreement it each into antithetic pages for probe into movers, budgeting, decluttering, and more. Notion besides offers ready-made templates, galore of which are free, created by different radical who person gone done akin moves — similar this one I utilized successful my hunt oregon this template my workfellow Emma Roth used. Having a premade database with fields for rent, location, and truthful distant was specified a time-saver. 

What I truly appreciated — and what truly sped things up — were Notion’s web clippers and third-party integrations. The web clippers allowed maine to rapidly prevention listings from Zillow oregon probe from Yelp straight into my Notion workspace, for example. That successful itself reduced my tabs acold much than OneTab. Notion besides fto maine sync apps similar Google Calendar truthful I could much easy support way of each my tours and deadlines successful 1 place.

Keeping emails organized during your search

Okay, I’ll beryllium honest: I didn’t stumble upon the Gmail Tabs hold until aft I moved, but I cognize I volition beryllium heavy relying connected the desktop app hold for my next. The extension, which I waxed poetic astir successful this post, gives you a level of flexibility that goes acold beyond Gmail’s built-in tab options. It lets you crook your labels oregon hunt queries into tabs you tin pin astatine the apical of your inbox, close wherever Gmail’s Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forum tabs live. You tin past acceptable up filters to funnel each applicable emails into the due categories.

That means you could, for instance, make categories for spot notification emails from sites similar Zillow oregon HotPads, rental applications, and different things for speedy and casual access. You tin delete and edit the names of the tabs arsenic often arsenic you want, rendering it a adjuvant enactment instrumentality passim the full moving process. After you find a place, you tin get escaped of that tab and adhd a caller 1 for each your moving company-related emails, different 1 for incoming emails astir things you mightiness beryllium selling, say, via Craigslist, and more.

Voice assistants tin beryllium ace utile erstwhile you’re crunched for time

Those last weeks earlier you person to determination are killer, and I recovered myself moving astir frantically. I was juggling dozens of things astatine once, and it felt similar my encephalon was astir to detonate with accusation and dates. So I outsourced fractional of my encephalon to Alexa — benignant of. I synced my Google Calendar with my Echo Show 8. That way, whenever an accidental for a viewing came up, I could archer Alexa to adhd it to my calendar. Alexa was besides adjuvant for keeping way of each the worldly I abruptly remembered astatine the past minute, similar a alteration of code for a subscription oregon company.

Other tiny organizational hacks

Those are the biggies, but determination were smaller tools that besides helped maine oregon radical I cognize that I deliberation are worthy sharing.

Enlist a chatbot astatine the beginning

AI chatbots similar ChatGPT oregon Google’s Gemini mightiness not ever beryllium the brightest bots, but they tin beryllium adjuvant for readying and probe purposes. ChatGPT did assistance a batch erstwhile I needed to interruption down the moving process into smaller steps truthful I felt little overwhelmed. I recovered it was besides utile for summarizing articles and uncovering the champion existent property sites successful my area.

Take vantage of organizational features built into spot websites

Many spot websites connection features that tin besides assistance support you organized, truthful marque definite to check. I utilized Zillow a lot, truthful the Zillow Renter Hub stuck out. It offers an casual and centralized mode to comparison listings, negociate tours, support way of applications, connection prospective landlords, and more.

Use inventory apps similar Sortly to support way of your stuff 

Last but not least, determination are a batch of inventory apps that tin assistance you support way of wherever you’ve packed everything. I cognize immoderate radical who person utilized Sortly, an iOS app that helps you make a ocular inventory of your stuff, with photos. The premium tier, which costs $50 per month, besides lets you make QR codes for your moving boxes (although astir radical won’t request to usage it for much than a period oregon two).