Moving Office Spaces Made Easy

As a consultant, I move cubes often. At my current client, I have been asked to move spaces six times, most recently this past Monday. Within an hour, I had moved my equipment and all my decorations. People commented that my new space looked as if I had been there a long time.

I thought that odd, but I realized that I have gotten cube moving down to a science. Here is how I do it:

Pack the Files

All my files and notebooks fit into my briefcase. I take care to keep them that way; all paper needed to be retained at the end of a release is scanned and stored with my project notes on my hard drive.

Pack The Drawers

I have two other drawers: one with tea, drink mixes and silverware, and one with office supplies. These drawers were transferred as is into the new desk; however, if I need to leave the drawers in place, I simply pull all items into the gallon zipper bag I keep in each drawer and toss into my briefcase.

Pack the Decorations

My calendar gets folded up and put into my briefcase. Next all personal items are put into one reusable shopping bag (I keep these in my car for general shopping, but they are useful in a move). This includes my desk lamp, my picture holder and my mug. If I were moving buildings, my plants would be put in plastic shopping bags and carefully placed in the top of the other bag.

Remove The Bulletin Board

My bulletin board comes down easily, and I take care that no decoration hangs over the edges. This facilitates moving it with the contents intact.

Unpack

Packing my personal stuff takes about 10 minutes. After that I can concentrate on moving equipment. Once the equipment has been moved and set up, I can customize my cube in about 5 minutes.

The Secret: Limit Your Stuff

The big secret to this is to limit the stuff I have in the office. If it isn’t useful for my job or maintaining my sanity, it doesn’t stay. My supervisor has told me that in a previous job that required a lot of moves, he decided that it didn’t all fit in a backpack, something needs to go.

Photo by casey.marshall