The night before a move, a strangely specific question tends to appear:
Does everyone else actually have all of this finished before the movers arrive?
A guess like “maybe 70% do” feels plausible, but public surveys rarely ask the exact question, “What percentage had every box fully packed at the moment the crew arrived?”
What the available surveys do show is a clear direction. Most people start weeks in advance, and failing to finish packing appears to be a minority outcome rather than the norm. That does not mean everyone is calm and perfectly organized. It means the standard move is not usually “the truck is outside and the entire apartment is still unpacked.”
The items that often survive until the end are the ones still being used: toiletries, bedding, refrigerator items, and especially the computer setup.
At that point, moving stops feeling like packing and starts feeling like a war against cables.
1. People start earlier than you might expect, but 34.3% is not a failure rate
A 2019 LIFULL HOME'S PRESS survey found that people started moving preparations one month ahead 39.8% of the time, two weeks ahead 21.48%, and two months or more ahead 20.5%. Only 1.8% said the day before and 0.42% said the day of the move.[1]
A 2024 SUUMO survey found a similar pattern: 39.4% started at least a month ahead and 38.8% started two to three weeks ahead, totaling 78.2% starting at least a couple of weeks early.[2]
Another number is easy to misread. In a 2023 Art Moving Company survey, 34.3% said packing was a paid option they wished they had used or wanted to use.[3]
That does not mean 34.3% failed to finish packing.
It also includes people who finished but thought, “That was miserable. Next time I am paying someone to make the cardboard mountain disappear.”
An older LIFULL survey of 361 respondents found 16.3% selected “packing or organizing did not finish in time” as a moving failure.[4]
So there is no good basis for saying everyone finishes comfortably. There is also no good basis for saying most people fail.
“About 70% probably get it done” is not an absurd intuition, but the public data do not let us certify that exact percentage.
2. Moving is not just a deadline. A truck physically arrives
Moving has an unusually strong kind of deadline.
A work task can slip from “this week” to next week. Decluttering can survive another month under the label “I will do it later.”
A move is different. At the scheduled time, real people and a real truck arrive.
The truck does not wait for your emotional readiness.
As the appointment approaches, the number of available choices collapses.
Pack it. Box it. Finish it.
That is why someone can spend days thinking, “There is no way this gets done,” and then move with absurd speed on the final morning. Their personality did not transform overnight. The escape routes disappeared.
A moving crew is basically a very large physical deadline machine.
3. Having a few things left on the morning of the move is not automatically bad preparation
People continue living in the home until they leave it.
Some things remain out because they are still needed:
- phone chargers
- toiletries
- bedding
- a minimal set of dishes
- refrigerator contents
- computers and monitors
There is a big difference between “the final set of daily essentials is still in use” and “half the home has not been started.”
The first case means the move is already in its final stage.
The goal on moving day is not to make the apartment look like a museum archive.
The goal is to make everything safe and ready to carry out.
4. The PC area suddenly raises the difficulty level: comfort sends its bill on moving day
A good computer setup is wonderful in everyday life.
Add monitors, external devices, speakers, hubs, chargers and power strips, and daily work becomes easier.
Then moving day arrives and every improvement defects to the enemy.
A monitor is no longer just a screen. It has power, video cables and a stand.
A desktop is no longer just a box. It has USB, display, audio, network and storage tentacles.
Every bit of convenience added over the years creates a little relocation cost.
The setup was not a subscription.
It was a one-time purchase with the labor bill deferred until moving day.
5. For PCs, monitors and cables, aim for “rebuildable,” not “perfectly cataloged”
Official moving guidance is surprisingly consistent.
Art Moving Company recommends backing up important data, shutting down the main power, disconnecting all attached wiring, packing cables and peripherals together, and clearly identifying the contents.[5]
Its AV equipment guide also recommends photographing connections and marking cables so reinstallation is easier.[6]
Another official moving guide recommends protecting the PC and display with cushioning and grouping cables so it is obvious which device they belong to.[7]
A practical sequence is therefore:
- Back up important data.
- Shut the computer down fully. Make sure external storage is not writing data.
- Take photos before unplugging anything. Capture the whole desk, the PC rear panel, monitor inputs and the power-strip area.
- Disconnect the cables. Label only the connections that are genuinely special.
- Group cables by device or function. There is no need to archive every cable like a museum artifact.
- Protect monitor panels from pressure and impact.
- Protect the computer and external storage from shocks.
- Write useful labels on the boxes. “PC peripherals” and “monitor cables” already save a lot of time later.
Sakai Moving Service likewise says it can pack and transport desktop computers, while customers are generally responsible for disconnecting and reconnecting wiring, and should back up data first.[8]
Exact service boundaries differ by mover, so the contract with your own company takes priority.
6. If someone else will rebuild the setup in the new home, micro-managing every cable matters even less
If you are not personally rebuilding the entire desk at the new place, your target in the old home changes.
You do not need a perfect cable map that exists only inside your head.
You need a setup that another person can reconstruct from the photos and parts.
Usually that means:
- photos of the finished arrangement
- close-ups of rear ports
- simple labels only for unusual connections
- bags of cables grouped by device family
Then the new installation instruction can simply be: “Please restore it to this layout.”
Writing an essay on every HDMI cable can consume the scarcest moving-day resource: your own time.
If it can be rebuilt, you win.
This is not the World Cable Management Championship.
7. Near the end, judge by “safe to hand over,” not “perfectly organized”
A few days before the move, careful sorting and decluttering still make sense.
Just before the movers arrive, the priority order changes:
Do not break it → do not lose it → make it movable → make it rebuildable.
Anything beyond that is a bonus.
So reaching the conclusion, “I will take photos, box it, protect it from damage, and have it rebuilt at the new place” is not necessarily sloppy.
It can be the result of removing work that no longer serves the real goal.
A powerful PC setup may represent civilization on a normal day. On moving day, it becomes a boss monster covered in cables.
Still, the solution is finite: photograph, shut down, unplug, protect, box.
In the end, physics wins.
The truck is coming, so the boxes get closed.
Sources
- LIFULL HOME'S PRESS, 「引越しあれこれランキング。引越しの挨拶をする人は意外と多い？」, 2019 survey. Preparation-start distribution: one month before 39.8%, two weeks before 21.48%, two months or more before 20.5%, one week before 15.3%, previous day 1.8%, moving day 0.42% homes.co.jp
- SUUMO引越し, 「引っ越し荷造り丸わかりガイド」, survey conducted 2024-03-07, n=500. One month or more before 39.4%, two to three weeks before 38.8%, one week before 17.6%, within three days 2.4%, previous day 0.6%, no self-packing 1.2% hikkoshi.suumo.jp
- アート引越センター, 「引越経験者に聞いた引越行動調査 2023」, n=394 among people who used a mover in the previous year. Packing was the top paid service respondents wished they had used or wanted to use, 34.3% the0123.com
- LIFULL HOME'S PRESS, 「引越しの失敗談ランキング」, n=361. 16.3% selected “荷詰めや荷物の整理が間に合わなかった” among moving failures homes.co.jp
- アート引越センター, 「パソコンのお引越し準備」. Recommends data backup, shutting down, disconnecting wiring, and packing cables/peripherals together with clear labels the0123.com
- アート引越センター, 「テレビ・オーディオ家電のお引越し準備」. Recommends photographing connections and using tags or marks on cables before moving the0123.com
- 「わたしの引越」公式ガイド, 「引っ越しの荷づくりを効率的に進めるコツ」. Recommends backup, cushioning for computers and displays, and grouping/labeling cables 008008.jp
- サカイ引越センター, 「荷造り FAQ」. States that desktop computers can be packed and transported, while customers are asked to handle cable disconnection/reconnection and perform backup beforehand hikkoshi-sakai.co.jp
