No, instead it's unpacking that I can't stand. It's tearing open of boxes, unloading, mess all over my home that sits there for days. The frustration of not knowing just where I put my silverware or bath towels. The inevitable damage that always occurs to something ... and Murphy's Law guarantees that "something" will be last thing you wanted damaged.

Of course, if you're Martha Stewart of movers, you won't waste a minute letting those boxes sit idle. No, instead, you'll plunge into them, unpacking and arranging. You won't get a moment's rest until every last possession has found a home. Those of us in real world, however, have to determine what must be unpacked first and what can be unpacked later. We resign ourselves to fact that our new homes will look like a disaster area for an indefinite period to be determined by our respective energy and sanity levels. After all, when you move into a new residence, you've got a million loose ends to tie up, not least of which is starting a new job or helping get kids acclimated to their new neighborhood and school.

So forget about committing yourself to some imaginary timetable. Instead, unpack in stages. But what stage should come first? What are items you need first?

Let's step back a second. First of all, unpacking will be far easier if you've labeled all of your boxes by their corresponding room, and either you or movers have placed them in correct place. You'll score extra efficiency points by listing contents of each box on side. If you haven't done either one of these, then you'll be spending quite a bit of time breaking open boxes and dumping out their contents in your pursuit of one specific item ... which, by way, you won't find until you reach very bottom of very last box.

It's difficult to remember all of things you need to take care of before leaving your apartment. You've got hours of packing, cleaning and toting, and no matter how organized you are, 99% of time, you'll end up forgetting something. Whatever you do... just make sure you don't forget to notify everyone about your change of address.

There are two ways to do this:

The Hard Way: Your local post office will provide you with change of address cards free of charge. You are responsible for filling them out, paying for postage, and mailing them out on time.

The Easy Way: Visit MoveCentral.com! This company has created a simple, comprehensive service to help save you a little of time & money typically wasted on changing your address. Rather than worrying about getting to Post office during business hours and manually filling out address change request cards, you can fill everything out on-line -any time of day or night- for free!