Most packing advice is a list of tricks. What actually makes a move go well is a handful of habits that pay off twice: once when you tape the box shut, and again three weeks later when you are standing in a new kitchen looking for the can opener. These ten are the ones that hold up. If you want the week-by-week plan around them, it lives in our 6-week moving checklist.

1. Purge before you buy a single box

Every item you pack costs you three times: the box and tape, the carry out, the carry in. Then it costs you a fourth time when you unpack it and decide you never wanted it. So the first hack is not a packing hack at all: go room by room with three bags (donate, recycle, trash) before the boxes arrive. Start with the rooms you use least; decisions there are easy and the momentum carries.

2. Heavy things in small boxes, light things in big ones

The classic mistake is a large box full of books: too heavy to lift safely, and the bottom fails. Put books, records, tools and canned food in small boxes; save the large boxes for pillows, lampshades, bedding and stuffed animals. For a sense of scale: the NIOSH lifting equation, the standard occupational tool for safe lifting, starts from a "load constant" of about 51 pounds (23 kg) for an ideal lift, close to the body, at waist height, with good handholds, and reduces it from there. A box carried down a staircase is far from ideal, so aim well under that.

3. Pad with what you already own

Towels, sheets, blankets, sweaters and socks are packing material that has to move anyway. Wrap a vase in a bath towel, stand glasses inside clean socks, fill the gaps around a lamp base with a fleece. You buy less bubble wrap and pack two rooms at once. The exceptions: don't use anything you'll need on the first night (that goes in the open-first box), and don't pad with clothes you care about around anything that can leak.

4. Fill every gap, then tape the bottom like an H

A box with empty space is a box that caves when another box lands on top of it. Pack heavy items on the bottom, lighter on top, and fill the voids with paper, linens or crumpled newsprint until nothing shifts when you tilt the box. The lid should close flat, not bulge and not sag. Tape the bottom seam and both edges in an H pattern, and do the same on top. Reused boxes are fine (the EPA puts the recycling rate for corrugated boxes at 96.5 percent, so plenty are in circulation), but skip any with soft corners or water damage.

5. Pack plates on edge and glasses with their own padding

Wrap each plate and stand them on edge in a small or medium box with a cushion of paper underneath, like records in a crate. Wrap glasses individually, stuff the inside with paper, and stand them upright with padding between; a box with cardboard cell dividers makes this faster.

6. Leave clothes on their hangers, and ask before emptying dressers

Gather a dozen hangers, pull a large trash bag up from the bottom of the clothes, and tie it around the hooks. They go straight onto the new closet rod. Dressers are different: whether you can leave soft, light clothing in the drawers depends on who is carrying them and how, so ask your mover. Anything heavy, fragile or valuable comes out either way, and drawers that slide should be wrapped or taped shut with tape that won't damage the finish.

7. Make toiletries leakproof with plastic wrap

Unscrew the cap of every liquid (shampoo, lotion, cleaning sprays you are keeping), lay a square of plastic wrap over the opening, and screw the cap back on over it. Then bag them by room, stand them upright in a small box, and fill the gaps. One burst bottle can ruin a box of linens.

8. Photograph the cables, then bag the screws with the furniture

Before you unplug the TV, the router or the desk setup, take a photo of the back of each one. It is the wiring diagram you will want at 10 p.m. on the first night. When you take apart a bed frame, a table or a shelf, put every bolt, bracket and the little hex key into a zip bag, write what it belongs to on the bag, and tape it to the largest piece of that furniture. Small hardware is what goes missing, and a bed you can't reassemble is a bad first night.

9. Snap the open box before you seal it, and never write "misc"

A label that says "Kitchen" tells the movers where a box goes. It does not tell you what is in it. Before the lid closes, take a photo looking down into the open box. It is a contents list that took two seconds and can't go out of date, and it is the end of the "misc" box: six months from now, nobody remembers what misc meant. Then label the box on two sides and the top with its room and a number, so it can be read whichever way it is stacked.

10. Some things never go on the truck

Movers will not carry hazardous household products: paint, paint thinner, aerosols, propane tanks, pool chemicals, pesticides and similar. The EPA treats leftovers like these as household hazardous waste, so use them up or take them to your local collection site instead of packing them. Then there is the stuff that should ride with you, not the crew: medications, passports and documents, jewelry, cash, laptops and backups, and the keys to the new place. For interstate moves, FMCSA notes that movers can limit their liability for items of "extraordinary value" (more than $100 per pound) unless you list them on the shipping documents. The easiest way to avoid that problem is to keep them in your car. Finally, be there when the movers load: FMCSA advises watching the loading and unloading and checking the inventory before you sign.

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