Office move

One person in charge, and a plan

In an office move, everyone handles their own desk and someone handles the rest: the shared rooms, the files, the IT, the movers. That person needs a list — what goes, where it goes, and who packs it.

Set the date for a weekend or the end of a working day, and count back from it. The first tasks on your office move checklist are the ones that take longest: booking the movers, getting the internet connected at the new space (one of the slowest things to arrange), and a floor plan of the new office showing where each person and each room will be.

Boxes by person and by room

The rule of a home move — every box belongs to a destination room — becomes, in an office: every box belongs to a person or to a room. At the new space, each box goes straight to the right desk or the right room, without anyone having to open it.

• Everyone packs their own desk, and their boxes carry their name.
• The shared rooms — meeting rooms, the break room, the files — have someone in charge and boxes with the room’s name.
• Every box gets a number. The number is what ties the box to the list.

The IT equipment

• Photograph the connections at each desk before you unplug anything.
• Cables, chargers and peripherals for each person go in a bag with their name, inside their box.
• Monitors travel upright and wrapped, like any screen.
• Laptops and data go with each person, or with whoever is in charge — not on the truck.

The files

Paper files move as they are: the folders in the order they’re in, and the boxes numbered in that same order. Files that arrive shuffled take weeks to sort out again.

On Monday

The goal is for everyone to find their own desk with their own boxes, their equipment plugged in or ready to plug in, and for anything missing to turn up without asking the whole office. A shared inventory list, with what’s in each box and the room it went to, does that.