Why You Need a ‘Pre-Orders’ Folder in Your Inbox

Here’s a fun tiny hack: When you’re moving, make sure you’ve changed the address for any services you use. That includes any online retailers you frequently shop at, which should be a pretty obvious thing when you’re presented with your old address when buying something post-move. What’s less obvious, however, are the addresses associated with any pre-orders you previously placed.

When I moved a few months ago, I (foolishly) assumed that switching my Amazon default delivery address would also switch my address for everything I had ordered that hadn’t yet arrived — all those geeky preorders for Baby Yoda toys lingering in the back of my Amazon account, no doubt. I’m checking my Amazon pre-orders right now, in fact, and the shipping addresses have changed over to my new address. No problem there, right?

Only, I received a text yesterday from my old roommates letting me know that they had received a package for me. And when they sent a picture over, the indistinguishable look of an Amazon box made me wonder: What the heck did I order, and why was it shipped to my old address?

I’m grateful that my old roommates are willing to let me know about these things. This would be a much different situation if I was, say, moving out of an apartment complex and the new people inhabiting my old space had no idea who I was. I suspect that’s most people’s predicaments, which makes checking your pre-orders even more critical. You might not get that which you were shipped, which isn’t a big deal if it was something you can easily reorder, but becomes a much bigger deal if it’s some nerdy collectable that sold out before it was released.

Tracking your pre-orders is quick and easy

Were I you, here’s the lifehack I’d use: Instead of scrounging through your email to figure out what you ordered in advance, trusting your foolproof memory to remember everything, or wasting hours looking at past orders on your favourite retailers, instead set up a simple folder in your inbox for pre-orders. Whenever you buy something that has a faraway expected shipping date, and you get an email confirming the purchase, drop that email into the folder.

You don’t even need to go through this folder to organise anything. Let it be a permanent archive of everything you ever pre-order. That way, if you’re changing locations permanently — or even planning a holiday — you can quickly check to see if anything you ordered might find its way to a doorstop you’re not at. If so, you can make arrangements as needed: changing it to a new address before it gets shipped, asking a friend or neighbour to grab it from your doorstep, and so on.

This technique makes managing your potential packages much easier and ensures you won’t forget anything — like I did, as I literally have no idea what’s awaiting me at my old place. I hope it’s something awesome, or at least some delicious bone broth.