This month’s packing tip has nothing to do with protecting our customer’s belongings. Instead, we’re going to talk about protecting ourselves.
As movers, we know well the importance of lifting and carrying stuff the right way so we don’t kill our backs. Packing rarely involves heavy lifting, but spending a few hours in someone’s kitchen can still end up being a pain in the lower back (yes and the neck but that’s different). Here are three steps for avoiding that physical strain.
First, clear a space on a table or a counter where you can set and wrap your customer’s dishes, bowls, glasses and everything else waiting in those cupboards and cabinets. You want to be standing upright, not hunched over a coffee table or kneeling on the floor. (If you are packing and moving your customer on the same day, make sure your team leaves that kitchen table until the end, or at least until you’re done packing in there.)
Second, place the box on top of something, so you don’t have to bend over so far as you fill it with bundle after bundle of wrapped dishes and coffee mugs. Wrapping and packing an entire kitchen can involve a hundred or two hundred separate items. Setting your dish pack on a chair or a low (and adequately wide) stool, or even a couple of (extremely well-packed) book boxes, can save you from a lot of unnecessary back-bending.
As a bonus, your box will be easier to lift once it’s all packed.
Third, simply apply these simple tips to every other box in every other room you pack. Even when you’re packing light stuff – clothes, bedding, shoes and small picture frames – the less you have to bend over the better and stronger you’ll be throughout the day.
It may seem like not a huge step to pack boxes in this elevated way, but trust me – the energy saved absolutely adds up throughout the day, let alone throughout a career.