The small-office move checklist: desks, cables and Monday morning

Offices do not forgive disorganisation. A home can survive a mystery box for a month; a workplace needs every desk working by 9am Monday. This checklist distils the small-office shifts we run around Christchurch into the order that works.

Two weeks out: map and label

Draw the new floor plan first — every desk, the meeting table, the printer, the kitchen. Number the desks and print matching labels. Assign each person two crates: one for desk contents, one for personal items. Book lifts and loading zones at both buildings now, not the week of the move, and confirm the property manager's after-hours rules in writing.

Moving eve: cables and last files

Photograph the back of every workstation before unplugging — one photo per desk saves an hour on Monday. Bag each dock with its own cables and tape the bag to its monitor. Filing runs in order, box by box, labelled by owner. The kitchen packs last and unpacks first; teams tolerate a missing whiteboard far better than missing coffee.

Monday: the working test

Unload to the floor plan, rebuild desks from their photos, and power up one workstation fully before doing the rest — if the network drop or power layout is wrong, you want to learn it once. Arthur Paine Removals runs workplace shifts on weekends precisely for this reason: Saturday moving, Monday working. Scope yours on +64 3 322 8361 with a desk count and the two addresses.