How to set up a 'move file' before the move so the chaos has a home

Three weeks out, the move is theoretical. Five days out, it's a controlled fire. The difference between a move that goes smoothly and a move that goes badly is rarely effort; it's whether the information needed at any given moment is in one place or twenty.

A move file solves this. It's not a checklist (those exist; they're useful for tasks). It's a single living document where everything decision-shaped or fact-shaped lives.

What goes in the move file

Five sections, in this order:

1. Identity facts — old address, new address, move date, date of first night at new place. The thing every customer service rep asks first.
2. Account numbers — bank, credit cards, utilities, insurance, with the customer service phone number for each. Filing each one as you find it beats hunting later.
3. Decisions made — "chose Mover Co for $4,200 flat" or "declined renter's insurance because covered under HO-3". Anything where you might second-guess yourself in three days.
4. Open questions — items still being researched, with the deadline by which they need to be resolved. "Decide on internet provider by Oct 10" makes the question visible until it's gone.
5. Receipts and confirmations — every email confirmation number from a utility, every receipt from a deposit, every signed contract — pasted in or linked.

When to start

Three weeks before the move is the right moment. By that point, the lease or sale is signed, the move date is real, and the chaos is starting to assemble. Earlier, and the file is mostly empty and you forget about it; later, and you spend the first day populating it from memory and miss things.

The format

A single Google Doc, Notion page, or text file beats a fancy app. The format is the lowest-friction one your phone can edit at a customer service counter. Apps with login flows and category trees lose to a one-page document with five headers — every time.

The move file is read three times more often than it's written to. Optimize it for skim, not for entry.

The habit that keeps it working

After every phone call, every email, every form filled — 30 seconds in the move file. Add the confirmation number, the agent's name, the date. The skim later is what makes those 30 seconds worth several hours during the move week.

After the move

The file goes in the new address's document folder (see our piece on the folder structure that survives) and gets read once at the 30-day mark, once at six months, and once at one year. After year one, it becomes archive; the working file is now whatever account directory you keep going forward — LocateFlow if you've adopted it, a spreadsheet if you haven't. The chaos has a home; the home becomes a habit; the habit becomes the address book that will outlast this move and the next one.