On my last batch I used a half gallon pitcher, sanitized of course, to transfer the first couple gallons of cooled wort from the pot in my sink to the bucket on the floor. I would pretty much fill a pitcher from the bucket and dump it into the bucket from a foot or 2 above the top of the buckets and then when the pot got light enough to comfortably lift I just dumped it in as quickly as I could to aerate the wort. I then pitched my smack pack, stirred and stuck the bucket in a swamp cooler in the garage.