Six weeks is not six weeks
Between September 4 and a move on October 19, with the last two days left clear, there are 43 packing days. That sounds like a lot. Count the hours instead: an hour on each weekday evening, four on a Saturday, three on a Sunday, and the same 43 days come to 73 hours. Lose six of them to a work trip and a weekend away — and the days you lose are weekend days, because that is where the rest of life already is — and 24 of those hours go with them. What is left is 49.
A hundred and ten boxes at two and a half an hour is 44 hours of packing. Against 49 available that is five hours of slack across six weeks, and the latest honest start date is September 8. Four days. That is what a comfortable-sounding plan looks like once it is counted, and it is why the answer to when should I start packing is nearly always now.
The rate is where the error lives
| Room | Boxes an hour | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Wardrobes and linen | fast | Goes in by the armful, no wrapping |
| Books and files | moderate | Small boxes, many of them, heavy |
| Kitchen | slow | Everything is wrapped individually |
| Display cabinets, art, glass | very slow | Wrapping, padding, and deciding |
| Garage and shed | unpredictable | Half of it is sorting, not packing |
One number cannot describe all of that, which is why the field is yours to set rather than a constant. The useful trick is to pack a single difficult box, time it door to door including finding the tape, and use that. Most people who do this discover their real rate is roughly half what they assumed, and the plan they had was short by a fortnight.
What sits outside the window
The last days before the move are not packing days and the calculator takes them out on purpose. Cleaning, the handover, the box of things that has to stay out until the final morning, the fridge that has to be emptied and defrosted — that is its own work and it collides with packing if the two are stacked on the same evening. Two days is a starting figure. If the old place needs to be handed back clean, it is more.
Where the box count comes from
This page is downstream of a count. The moving box calculator produces one from the size of the home, and the packing supplies by room calculator does it room by room along with the tape and paper, which is the more accurate route if you are willing to walk the house. Once the packing is scheduled, the crew hours calculator handles moving day itself, and the change of address deadlines and the utility transfer timeline cover the paperwork that runs on its own schedule alongside all of it.
Questions people ask
When should I start packing for a move?
Work backwards rather than forwards. Take the box count, divide by an honest packing rate for the hours, then count the actual hours left in the evenings and weekends between now and the move, minus the days you already know you will lose. On the default figures here that lands four days out from the starting date, which is typical: the slack in a six-week plan is usually about a week, and it disappears at the first lost weekend.
How many boxes can one person pack in an hour?
It depends on the room by a factor of several. Clothes and linen go quickly; a kitchen, a bookcase of ornaments or anything that has to be wrapped individually is far slower. Rather than guess, pack one difficult box and time it including the interruptions. Whatever number that produces is the one to put in the field above, and it is usually lower than the estimate that preceded it.
Should I pack a room at a time or a category at a time?
By room, with the rooms you use least going first, because that is the ordering that lets you keep living in the house while it empties. The calculator does not model the order — it counts hours — but the order is what decides whether the last week is calm or frantic. The rooms that resist this are the kitchen and whatever room the family actually sits in, and those are the ones that should be last.
What if the plan does not fit?
There are four levers and only four: fewer boxes, a faster rate, more hours, or bought hours. Fewer boxes is usually the cheapest and it pays twice, because anything not packed is also not carried, not driven and not unpacked. Bought hours are the honest fallback and the calculator prices them at whatever rate you were quoted, so the trade is visible rather than a vague sense of falling behind.
Why does the calculator take my lost days off the weekends?
Because that is where they land. A wedding, a work trip or a weekend away removes a Saturday, not a Tuesday evening, and the Saturday is worth three or four times as much in this plan. Subtracting an average day instead would understate the damage by hours, which would make the plan look survivable when it is not.