Moving to a new office with your company can be troublesome. But you can also look at office moving as an opportunity to start a new phase. So how do you accomplish your move with the least amount of work disruption?

Get with the Program

Hopefully you have someone very organized in charge of the move. That point person will help you with the schedule, labeling system, moving boxes and supplies and new office or cube assignments, and he or she will answer specific questions about the office move plan. When you have the information you need, you can begin working on your own area.

Purge It

Obviously, you'll be moving lots of files and data that you want to keep. But face it, there's a lot of stuff you can get rid of. Schedule a morning to go through your files and discard whatever isn't necessary to do business in the new location. Don't be sentimental or a packrat, just toss, set aside to move or take sensitive material to the shred bin.

If organization isn't your strong suit, you might use this time to work on becoming better at it. Take a look at your filing system. If it isn't working, implement something new before moving office.

Packing Up

It's easiest and you'll thank yourself later for transferring whatever system you have for your files into the box with them. Put things into boxes in the same order you had them in your file drawers/folders. Make sure that you label the boxes not only with the plan the office mover has, but your own notations that will make sense to you.

Have your own office move checklist to make packing easier and so you don't overlook anything. Do an inventory of your packed boxes and make a copy for the office move coordinator to give to the movers.

Personal Stuff

Any personal belongings that you don't want to get lost or broken, take home with you to move yourself. Again, this is a good time to take a use-it-or-lose-it attitude. Do you really need to save birthday cards from five years ago?

Get with IT

You may want to talk to IT about any concerns you have about your data. Should you back it up or will it be fine on the servers? Let them know of any needs you might have for the new office space, like additional cables, etc.

You will probably be advised to take your laptop home the night before moving office. Be sure and pack up any other computer-related things you might need before the new servers are in place.

Unpacking

Even though you might be tempted to just toss the boxed contents into file drawers, take the time in the new space to put things where you will be able to access them easily. You don't need to set up your whole area on the first day, but have things ready to go so you can get back to work as soon as possible.