For many people, much of the stress of moving comes from packing, buying a new house, sorting through different moving companies or making sure labeled boxes end up in the appropriate room.

But for techies, the number one concern with moving is the safe transportation of gadgets and gadget accessories: wires, adapters, cables, laptops, monitors, TVs, hard drives, ports, more wires, and the wayward keyboard. You probably have gadgets for your gadgets, adapters for your adapters and at least six drawers of every cord made between yesterday and 1998. Everyone knows you have to hold onto the old ones because you never know when you might need them.

That being said, what can you do to make sure you never leave a cord behind and ensure a safe move for all your most prized gadgets (and maybe furniture too, if time and space allow)?

Call the Roll

Moving is a great time to purge. Dig through those six drawers of cords and figure out what you really need versus what you could slide by without. Take a quick roll call of every gadget you have, which might not be so quick, and evaluate what you really need to take with you and what you can stand to throw away or recycle. You’d be surprised what you’ll find in drawer number four that you didn’t remember you were hauling around: computer chargers from your first laptop, connecting cables from your old Motorola Razr to your deceased computer, camera cords from your 3 mega-pixel point and shoot, and even the 3 mega-pixel camera itself. These types of things can go.

Make three piles: keep, recycle and trash. Items that may not be obsolete yet can be donated to a charity or thrift shops. Your old cell phones and computers or other large items can usually be used towards some type of drive, sold for parts or given to your 8-year-old niece for playtime.

Label Like Your Life Depends On It

The frustration you’ve felt from digging through every cord and cable you have to find that one you need to hook your phone to the surround sound system is seemingly endless. But, it doesn’t have to be. Use your move as a chance to finally get organized. Use color-coded tape, wire ties or a label maker, if you can find it, to tie together similar cords. You can group by device (phone, computer, monitor, etc.) or type (USB, Firewire, power cords, etc.) to make your next search a bit easier.

Take An Elitist Approach

Separate the gadgets and cables you need down the road from the ones you can’t live without during the moving process. There’s no worse feeling than getting all your gadgets packed away and not being able to find your phone charger, computer charger or external hard drive. Have a certain box, bin or bag labeled something along the lines of “LIFELINES TO LIFE” and toss the daily use cables there to avoid frantically tearing through your neatly packed boxes while your computer battery dips to 4%.

The Big Day

With your gadgets safely packed and ready to go, you can start thinking about packing other things like furniture or food — or whatever else regular people use to survive besides a laptop, iPhone and high-speed Internet.