Moving House Made Easy: Pack a Holiday Suitcase

When you are moving to a new house, the hardest days are the last few days at the old place and the first few days at the new place. Most of your things are packed, but you still need to manage until you finish unpacking the necessities.

Pack a suitcase for a week

For the move, pack suitcases as if you were going for a one week holiday. I have found this tip to be very useful. The first week in a new house can be very challenging, because otherwise, you start opening boxes to find things and leave them half unpacked. The mess will drive you nuts.

If you treat the new house like a hotel room for a while, you won’t start panicking when you need something, because you’ve already put it aside. Like in any hotel room, the essentials will be there: the beds, the refrigerator, the tables, the chairs. All you need to do is pack the same things you would need if you went to a serviced apartment:

This post is part 6 of 13 in the series Moving House Made Easy

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The King and His Servants

Being in a marriage or a close relationship is the secret to a long life. But it requires effort. If you want to save your marriage, it helps to learn about communication.

On our wedding days and during our honeymoon periods, we tend to be very accepting and flexible. Communication flows, even if we say nothing at all. It is the life that begins later, which tests the strength of our relationship. Slowly, day after day, the conversations, experiences together, arguments and stress create holes in our communication.

This can lead to the destruction of the relationship. In a happy relationship, time is a healer. In an unhappy relationship, time is a prison.

Some researchers claim they can listen to a married couple’s conversation and predict the success of their relationship about 90% of the time. 90%! That is a lot! With the couples that come to do my relationship coaching program, I can often tell from the way they talk to each other or about each other if their relationship is still as sweet as honey or whether they are feeling the bitter taste of separation.

This post is part 23 of 34 in the series Save Your Marriage

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Moving House Made Easy: The New Place

Moving to a new place is very exciting and a great opportunity to start fresh. A helpful tip to make the move smoother for everyone is to prepare them for what it is going to be like ahead of time.

How to prepare

When we move, we are usually concerned with the change in our basic needs and services. Being used to the old place, it can be hard to imagine what life in the new place is going to be like.

If you can, check out the new place. Checking out the new place ahead of time makes it easier to prepare yourself and your family for the new environment. If you get a chance to do that, take note of the surrounding area as well. This will make it easier for the entire family to prepare emotionally.

Visit those places physically with your kids, if possible, to make sure they have something to look forward to.

This post is part 4 of 13 in the series Moving House Made Easy

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Moving House Made Easy: Packing

Now that your are done with cleaning, today’s tip is about packing. Packing your house is one of the things that make moving so hard. After moving house more than 25 times, I have collected a few tips to make packing a little bit easier.

Make a packing schedule. If you think it won’t take too long, you are probably wrong. Yes, it is possible to pack an entire house in 3 days, but you will regret it when you get to the unpacking end. Leave one week at the end for the small things. They take the most time.
Start your packing from the garage, basement, or attic – the places that you don’t use as often. That way, when you move into your new house, you won’t have to open these boxes. They can stay closed until you need them.

Note: make sure to leave a tool box, ropes, tape, fixing and packaging material handy.

This post is part 2 of 13 in the series Moving House Made Easy

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Self Regulation: Research

In my last post I wrote about the difference between parents who try to control their kids and those who are self controlled. It all depends on the “self regulation muscle”, which has three levels of strength: weak, medium and strong.

This week, I would like to share some research on self regulation that might help you on your parenting adventure. It may even help prevent conflict and disagreement in your other relationships.

Remember, it is called “self” regulation for a reason. It is not something you can do to someone else. You have to do it for yourself. This is what most parents do not understand. They try to enforce regulations, but they are an external force so it does not work as well.

This post is part 2 of 3 in the series Self Regulation

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Self Regulation: Controlling vs. Controlled Parenting

This week, I met a guy at a social gathering and we introduced our families to each other. I talked about my wonderful kids and he told me about his kids. About the first two he just mentioned their age. About the youngest he said “This one is the kid from hell”. I talked to him a bit more and realized that you can tell a lot about successful parenting from a parent’s ideology about whether they should control their kids or control themselves.

There is an area in the brain, a bit like a muscle, that is responsible for “self regulation”. Self regulation is the ability to control ourselves and not do things impulsively without thinking them through. People who are able to self regulate have better relationships, mange conflicts better, have more money, were more popular as kids and have less conflicts and problems in life.

This post is part 1 of 3 in the series Self Regulation

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Best Time Management Quotes

Mastering time management is an art. The good thing about it is that everyone, even those who are not very creativity, can master it.

I was not born an artist of time management. Life circumstances “forced” me to develop these skills. I have to admit though, that it brought me a lot of certainty and even success.

Since I am a fan of quotes, I have been collecting ones about time management. They have helped me over the years to develop an appreciation for time and to make a good use of it.

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Efficient To Do Lists

Making a “to do” list is a very effective way to gain more time, clarity and success in life. People who work from a list are better at managing their time and their lives. Making a list is similar to having a plan, which is always more effective than doing things randomly. Random action tends to be reactive, much like a fire brigade, rushing to put out a fire after hearing the fire alarm. Often times we know what we need to do but our emotions are so overwhelming they prevent us from doing it. This is why we procrastinate. We procrastinate because doing something seems more scary than not doing anything at all. However, procrastination has its own price. We feel guilty and have even more emotional blocks. If for some reason it was hard to do something before, after procrastinating for a while, it is even harder.

The easiest way to stop procrastinating is to do something (even something small) and to move forward. Every small move we make is proof that we are able to keep progressing. It increases our sense of control over life and motivates us to keep going. If we set goals and plan to take action, prioritize our tasks and execute them, we can gain a sense of control, confidence and motivation.

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