This is how to use AI to plan a move, part 1: the six weeks before

This is how to use AI to plan a move. This one’s different from everything else on the site so far: not a moment, a project. A move takes six weeks of decisions, and this is the playbook for running all of them with the same AI conversation, start to finish.

Projects work differently than moments: one ongoing chat, revisited every few days, that accumulates your situation until the AI functions like a project manager who never forgets anything. This post is part 1: everything before moving week. Part 2 is the week itself.

Day one: set up the project chat

Open a fresh conversation, name it after the move, and front-load everything:

The project kickoff:

This chat is my moving project. The situation: we close on the new place August 28 and must be out of our rental September 1. Two adults, kids ages 6 and 9, one anxious dog, 1,400 miles, budget around $6,000 all-in. I have not moved in eleven years and I don’t know what I don’t know.

First: ask me whatever you need to build the master plan. Then give me the plan as weeks, with the decisions that have deadlines flagged, because I know some choices expire before others.

Swap the details for your own situation. The structure is the part that matters.

The questions it asks are the value: whether the buyer’s dates can slip, whether work is paying for anything, whether the kids change schools mid-year, what the dog does on a 1,400-mile drive. Each answer becomes permanent context. By the end of the first session you have a week-by-week master plan built around YOUR constraints, and, more useful, a list of the decisions that expire first (movers book out weeks ahead in summer; school registration has windows; the vet appointment for travel paperwork is not a day-of errand).

The recurring rhythm

Twice a week, ten minutes, same chat:

1. "Here’s what got done since last time. What slipped, what does it push, and what are the next three actions?"
2. Bring it every artifact: the mover quotes (attach all three and ask which is actually cheapest once the hidden lines are counted), the lease’s move-out cleaning clause, the internet installation dates on offer.
3. End each session with "what am I not thinking about for a family like ours?" It’s the question that surfaced renters insurance overlap, prescription transfers, and the elementary school records request in our test run.

The purge, the boxes, the paper

• Purging: photograph the garage shelf and ask "sell, donate, or truck?" item by item against the cost-per-pound of moving it 1,400 miles. Things look different next to their freight cost.
• Address changes: ask for the master checklist ranked by consequence-of-forgetting (the DMV and the IRS forgive slowly; the streaming service doesn’t care). Work it top down.
• The binder: have it maintain a running "moving binder" summary you re-request weekly: every confirmation number, date, and commitment in one message you can screenshot.

Where the dial applies

Mover quotes, deposits, and anything contractual are Zone 2 on the trust dial: the AI compares and drafts questions; the binding numbers get confirmed against the actual paperwork with your own eyes. And it plans routes and timelines brilliantly, but book nothing nonrefundable on its word alone; a two-minute confirmation is part of the workflow, not a failure of it.

Part 2 covers moving week itself: the load-out, the drive with kids and dog, and landing without chaos. It picks up the same chat where this leaves off: part 2 is here.

This is how to use AI.