First, decide if you can afford to hire movers or not. If you decide to use professional movers then you wont need to follow most of the steps in this article. But I've seen a lot of people move themselves and done it myself a few times.

Whether you use professional movers or not, get as many moving boxes as you can. You can never have too many of these. The place where you rent the rental truck will be happy to sell you three or a thousand. Also be sure to get some kind of padding to put between unpackaged furniture or appliances in the truck. The truck rental place can also lend you these or you can use old comforters.

Contact as many of your friends as possible well in advance if you wont be using professional help. This seems like a no brainer but if you wait until the week you are moving your friends might have other plans. Not to mention they will need all the strength and stamina they can get so you want to be sure they aren't running the Boston Marathon the day before your move.

When renting the truck, always anticipate needing it longer than what you would initially plan on. In every in-state move I've been involved in someone is always scrambling to get in one last trip before the truck is due back. In addition to this, if you will be making multiple trips between the two locations, try to move the biggest items first. This will save the smaller items for when your strength is almost gone. Also, if you do need to bring the truck back before the moving is done then hopefully you will just be left with smaller items you can fit in your friends' cars.

Get access to a dolly. Your Aunt Dolly may be of some help but a moving dolly will be the best. Your lower back will thank you for it the following week.

Measure doorways and big items before you start moving things. The little feet on Sofas and Refrigerator doors are notorious for just barely preventing you from reaching your goal. Some of your doorways may be bigger than others and knowing which one to use ahead of time will save you a lot of grief. One doorway may be 10 feet closer to the driveway than another one but if it takes you an extra 20 minutes to get the refrigerator door off then you might be better off taking the longer walk.

Have a toolbox available at both locations. You never know when you may still need to dismantle things to fit them through doorways or stairwells. For example, trying to get a complete sleeper sofa up a winding staircase can be a challenge. Once you remove the inner mattress it is much lighter and hollow.

Use gloves or have bandages and band aids accessible. A moving day isn't complete until someone slices their finger open.

Finally, if there will be more than 3 vehicles in your moving party then have cell phones on in all vehicles (hands free off course) or people need GPS and the location of where you are moving to. You wont have a hearse leading the pack so other drivers probably wont know you are all following each other. This is a lot easier than having to pull a 20 foot rental truck off to the side of the road while you wait for half your group to catch up because they got stuck at a light.