How to stack a container so nothing gets crushed

Load in reverse order of need

Whatever you will want first goes in last, by the doors. Seasonal things, paperwork you are only keeping for the tax man, the spare bed — those go to the back wall and stay there.

Write a list of what went in the back as you load it. In four months you will not remember.

Build walls, not piles

Stack boxes in columns against the side walls, flush to each other, so each column holds the next one upright. A pile in the middle of the floor has nothing to lean on and will go over the first time you pull something out.

Fill every box completely. A half-full box has nothing inside to carry the weight of the one above it, and it will fold.

Leave a corridor

Keep a clear foot down the middle all the way to the back. It feels like wasted space on day one and it is the difference between a five-minute visit and an hour of shifting furniture.

Get things off the floor

A pallet or a couple of lengths of timber under anything soft — mattresses, sofas, boxes of clothes. Steel floors can sweat in a cold snap, and an inch of air underneath stops the bottom box soaking it up.

Furniture

Take the legs off tables and store them flat, taped underneath the top so they do not go missing. Sofas go on end against a wall, which costs you a quarter of the floor space of laying them flat. Mattresses go on their side in a cover, never flat with weight on top.

Wardrobes and chests travel better full than empty — put soft things inside them and you save a box.

The last thing to do

Before you shut the doors, stand at the opening and take a photograph. It takes two seconds and it is the quickest way to remember what is in there and roughly where.