We moved! I’m super happy to be back in Southern California. Moving is a major life event that can be really stressful so I wanted to try to be the most organized as possible to help the process go smoothly. For me, having an Erin Condren Life Planner has definitely helped me to live a more intentional life and to stay on track with my goals. Here’s how I used my Life Planner to help plan and coordinate my move:
ERIN CONDREN LIFE PLANNER
I’ve been using an Erin Condren Life Planner for years — it’s the perfect planner for me. If you aren’t familiar with Erin Condren planners, basically they’re highly customizable planners that have a lot of features to keep your life organized.
When you go to the Erin Condren site, you can choose the cover you want which you can personalize with your name or whatever you want. Then you choose the layout — hourly, horizontal, or vertical — and the colorful theme or neutral theme. I have the colorful horizontal layout. You can pick the coil color and add any accessories. Get $10 off your planner when you create an account through my link.
MOVING TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
At the end of last year, we decided to move to Southern California. With a huge life event like moving, I really wanted to minimize stress by staying as organized as possible. Once we knew where we wanted to go, we wrote out a rough timeline of all that needed to happen before we could move. I wrote out the timeline in the back Notes section to just have with me for quick reference.
One of the major obstacles in our moving timeline was selling our house. We had a lot to prepare to get the house sold and we weren’t sure how long that process would take. Thankfully, we had our realtor who sold us our house to help us figure all of the details.
PACKING
Packing is not the most fun for me. I number each box and then use my Erin Condren Life Planner to document what’s in each box in the Notes section. I tried to only pack the things I knew I wouldn’t need until after the move, but having a list of what is in each box made it super easy to retrieve something in case we needed it.
FIX UP THE HOUSE
There is a lot that goes into fixing up a house to sell. Fortunately, our house was in really good condition and we didn’t need to do any major renovations, but we still had to coordinate to get all the small fixes done. I used my planner to plan and schedule all of the improvements/fixes — painters, carpet cleaners, electrician, landscapers, in-home cleaners, etc.
We had so much planned in such a short amount of time, that it was difficult to coordinate. But having everything in my planner in the monthly/calendar view helped me to visually see how my weeks were looking.
LISTING THE HOUSE
Once our house was on the market, we had an Open House and lots of showings. Living with the bare minimum was rough, and it was super stressful having to leave the house with sort notice so that the house could be shown. I documented everything in my planner; even though that time was really difficult for me, I love being able to look back and see all that we accomplished in that time.
FINDING A NEW HOME
We knew we wanted to initially live in an apartment until we found a more permanent place to be, so we started researching online. I love using Trulia to research an area because they have a crime filter and you can see if an area is safe. We had visited the city a few times before and knew the general vicinity, but it’s nice to get data to back up that decision.
We received multiple offers on our house (yay!) and when we entered escrow, we flew down to check out the different apartments and see what they had available. I already had a few places in mind, but one apartment really stood out to me. I had been trying not to obsess over it since units come and go, and we weren’t exactly sure when we would be moving at the time. Booking flights and finding a hotel was so exciting for me because it was one of the last steps on our timeline.
To prepare for our trip, I printed out floor plans and wrote out details for each place to keep in my planner. It’s helpful for me to track the places we saw so it’s clear in my mind when we sat down to make a decision. While we visited each place, I had my planner with me and took notes on everything.
When I saw the apartment I had been low key obsessing over, I knew it was the one! The layout is so open and bright. It’s on one of the upper floors, so the view is perfect! We put down our deposit the next day and I started mapping out our furniture on the floor plan.
MOVING DAY
After we flew back home, there was still a lot to do to finalize the sale of our house and to coordinate our move. Having my Erin Condren Life Planner really helped me to stay on track and keep everything together. The movers came earlier than our actual moving day because it took them a few days to drive their truck down with stops/other pick ups. I used these cute stickers from Shine Sticker Studio to track our moving milestones.
We are in our new place now and I love it. I can’t wait to do a little apartment tour post later. Most of all, I am super happy to be settled again and get to relax from all the changes. My Moving Timeline is all checked off and I so happy to be done with everything.
Moving is difficult, but having my planner definitely helped me to see the bigger picture of everything and to be a little less stressed. If you want $10 off your own Erin Condren Life Planner, create an account through my link.
