Plan your move-timing research
Use AstroCarto move-timing research once you have a destination to investigate. This guide helps you decide whether your next task is choosing a city, understanding a timing result, or comparing its dates with a practical moving plan. Each step should leave you with something specific to carry forward.
- Choose the right starting point
- Choose the guide you need
- Resolve a calendar mismatch
- Keep your research usable
Are you ready to study timing, or are you still choosing a place?
Timing answers a question about one person's birth details, one destination, and one goal. It becomes useful when you can name the city you want to investigate and why you are considering it.
| Your starting point | Next step | What to carry forward |
|---|---|---|
| You have no shortlist or are still weighing several cities | Use the place-selection guide. | A provisional destination and the support, caution, or practical reason for investigating it. |
| One city is a concrete possibility | Follow Best Time to Move. | Accurate birth input, the full destination name, and one goal such as Career or Relocation. |
| Two people still need to agree on a destination | Start with shared-place research. | A shared shortlist and both people's unresolved conditions. |
For example, “Paris or Lisbon?” is still a place-selection question. “Paris for career, but which periods should I investigate?” is a timing question. “Can we both finish our commitments before moving?” needs a practical shared calendar as well. A single timing result will not settle all three.
Which article should I read next?
Choose by the information you are missing. You can enter at any stage when you already have the required input or result.
| You need to… | Read this | Finish with… |
|---|---|---|
| Produce and understand a timing result | Read a timing window | A note containing the city, goal, calculation period, timezone, window, outlook, strength, and strongest dates. |
| Understand an empty or restricted result | Distinguish no window, a short display range, and locked dates | The reason no dates are visible and the appropriate next action, without inventing a date. |
| Connect the city decision to real work and housing dates | Plan a move from city comparison to timing | A city-to-timing handover and a checklist showing which dates fit, which conflict, and what remains to confirm. |
The timing tutorial explains fields; the moving-plan guide demonstrates a complete task. For orientation, the tutorial's synthetic London Career example has a 10–29 May 2027, Mixed, Medium window. That gives you a period and a qualified reading to investigate. To decide what to do during it, you still need the practical dates available to you. Use the tutorial for the field meanings and the planning guide for that next decision.
What should I do when the result and my calendar do not fit?
First identify what changed. A display setting, an external deadline, and a different research question need different responses.
| Situation | Keep this distinction | What to do now |
|---|---|---|
| The short view is empty, but you can plan further ahead | The 3/6/12-month controls filter one existing calculation. | Check the full-range explanation before deciding that no window exists. |
| Your feasible date is inside a window but is not a Strongest Date | A window covers a period; selected strongest dates are a smaller set within it. | Keep the actual date and window outlook in your plan. Check whether a listed date is practical, without assuming the other days are unusable. |
| A fixed work or housing date falls outside the window | The calculation has not resolved the scheduling conflict. | Confirm which commitments are flexible and which are fixed. Use the planning example to record the mismatch rather than stretching the window. |
| The city, goal, or birth information changes | The old result answers the old question. | Follow input changes and recalculation, then label the new result separately. |
| No useful window exists within your practical horizon | That is a result to retain, not an instruction to abandon every move. | Let confirmed commitments guide the practical plan; use timing as one input and keep the uncertainty explicit. |
In the London example, a possible work start on 20 May would be inside the window but outside the listed strongest dates of 13 and 19 May. A fixed 1 June start would be outside the window. Those are author-created scheduling examples. The first calls for weighing a feasible date within the period; the second calls for checking an actual mismatch. Neither supplies a new calculated score or guarantees an outcome.
Before leaving this step, write one next action with an owner: for example, “Confirm whether the employer can vary the start date,” or “Check the accommodation handover.” Bring back the answer before changing the plan. Repeatedly changing goals to get a favorable label does not answer the original scheduling question.
How do I keep the research usable when I return?
Use accurate birth information for timing. If the time is unknown, read the birth-time requirements before continuing; guessing a time does not solve that problem. The preview requires sign-in and full dates depend on timing access. Read the current message for the action rather than using an AI credit balance as proof of access.
You can store and reuse birth details, but retain the window and practical checklist separately. Check what is saved and where to reopen it before relying on an old result. Reopening does not refresh its calculation period to start today.
For a shared move, keep each person's research and necessary conditions visible. Best Time to Move calculates one person's timing; agreeing a date for both people still requires the shared practical calendar.
Generate your map when you are ready to study one destination, or return to the route above that matches your unfinished question.