So, after storing my stuff in a timely manner at Dymon Self Storage (warning, auto-play video), I was told that I should write up something about my experiences and tips I may have for those looking to store their goods.

Pack Everything Before Hand
It might seem like common sense, but even when you think you’ve packed everything, go back and double check. You don’t want people to be waiting for you to pack up last minute items like soap, towels, curtains while the truck needs to be loaded. I have made this mistake multiple times before, but thankfully, not this time.

We only had the moving truck for ninety minutes, and with the travel time between my place and the storage center taking about ten minutes, I wanted to limit inefficiencies.

Same Size Boxes are Helpful
I bought some boxes from the storage company, and I made sure that a large percentage of my stuff was in those same sized boxes. This made loading, unloading and stacking everything much easier, and probably saved us a bit of time.

Usually, I would scavenge these boxes, but in doing so, I would have tons of different shapes and quality levels of boxes that wouldn’t stack well.

Get Extra Help
Tom and I probably could have moved everything ourselves, but having the extra set of hands, and even better an extra truck, meant that we were able to load and unload from two vehicles, and with three people for the one bedroom apartment worth of stuff, things were super efficient.

The moving truck came late, but thankfully, the other person I hired was earlier and we were able to fill the odd shaped items into the back of his truck, leaving the standard boxes for the Dymon Storage moving truck.

Stack Well
This is a shout-out to Tom, my friend and neighbour. His skill in piecing together the boxes, as well as the odd shaped items in the moving truck and storage facility meant that more stuff took less space, and fit much better. He was the Tetris master of the afternoon.

Consider Your Large Items
The smartest thing we did was planning out when and where larger items would go. Making sure we moved the mattress and futon sofa in first, as well as arranging priority space for heavy and awkward items both in loading, unloading and storing meant we were able to efficiently fill the storage space.

Conclusion
The smartest thing you can do is pre-plan, almost to the point of over planning. Making sure we double checked everything before we even had a truck to load meant that we were able to get everything done much faster than we had scheduled, and at less pain on our bodies and less stress on my mind.