While moving to a new home can be exciting, stress tends to also be a major factor for everyone involved. Between the stress and excitement, you may find it tough to keep everyone on track when it comes to planning, packing, and actually moving. Here are a few things you can do to help keep the household moving in the right direction throughout your move:
Assign Tasks to Everyone
To minimize confusion and make sure that everyone knows exactly what their role is throughout your move, sit down with your spouse and assign tasks to each family member. The younger kids can take care of packing boxes of books or movies, and the older kids can handle prepping for a garage sale or cleaning out the basement.
Split the tasks up so that everyone has something new to complete each day during the weeks leading up to your move. After making a list of task assignments, write a note next to each assignment that highlights your expectations so there isn't any confusion as tasks are being completed.
Maintain a Wall Calendar
Once the assignments have been passed out, you'll need a way to keep track of everyone's progress. Putting a large whiteboard calendar on the wall will help you track everything and hold each person accountable for the tasks they've been charged with completing. Start each week off by writing everyone's tasks down on the calendar on their due dates.
Then have each person jot down how much time they spent working on their tasks and document when something is completed. If at the end of the week each person completes all of their tasks, celebrate with pizza and a movie or an evening or game time together.
Offer Some Incentives
In addition to celebrating completed tasks as a family at the end of a week, consider offering personal incentives to each person who completes all of their tasks without having to be reminded throughout the week. You can also use incentives to encourage everyone to work together and complete large projects, such as painting the inside of the house or steam-cleaning the carpets. Choose incentives that will get your kids out of the house for a while so they can forget about moving. Consider these suggestions:
- A pair of movie tickets
- A trip to the skating rink
- A picnic in the park
- A day at an amusement or water park
The older kids can get away with their friends, and you can escort the younger kids to enjoy their incentives.
Hold Weekly Family Meetings
Holding family meetings on a weekly basis is another great way to help keep everyone on track throughout your move. This will give each person a chance to express their feelings, concerns, and insights so that you can work together to address any issues that are brought up. You'll also have a chance to review what tasks have been completed, which are currently being done, and which still have to be assigned.
The kids may want to take this time to swap tasks with one another. Your meetings should be done around a table without any distractions. Avoid meeting over dinner or in front of the television so you have everyone's undivided attention. You should also schedule your meetings at the same time and on the same day of the week if possible so it's easy for you, your spouse, and your older kids to schedule the meetings into your day.
With the help of these tips and tricks, you should be able to keep the entire family on track throughout the moving process with little arguing or complaints to contend with.
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