The recurring need for reorganizing and optimizing your living space | Van Life Diary
Living in the Sprinter van during these past few months has been a real challenge in itself, not only because there is limited space available but because living in the thing you quickly get used to your own temporary hacks that were always supposed to be just that - temporary.
Putting the cutting board underneath the sink may not have been the obvious choice when planning out the kitchen arrangement but in the end things need to be within reach even if the bed is folded out all the way and there is a bunch of items in the van cluttering the rest of the immediately available space.
And so many of the great planning ideas go out the window as they encounter practical testing of their merit.
Things tend to find their own place when enough time is passing and practicality always seems to outweigh the smart allocating of items to open spaces.
And so we found it is impeccable to periodically recheck the entire layout of the van and its storage spaces so that we may improve the quality of living before we become dependent on less-than-ideal temporal fixes to permanent problems out of sheer habit.
Before we left for the road we did our best to gauge and theorize what items we would use most and where we should best keep them, only to find that the items we regularly use are kind of out of reach and the items we never use - in comparison - are within an arm's length. sigh
The amount of strain this puts on the mind, living in a non-optimized living space with all these countless items, tools and materials, clothes, food items and gizmos is sheer mindblowing, especially because it's kinda hard to notice it consciously even when you do look out for it! It tends to gnaw at us long before we have realized that something's gotta give and that things need to be rearranged... hopefully before we become depressive.
Dialing back the sheer amount of items in the environment is essential but organizing the chaos into a less disturbing mess takes effort that is priceless the moment things find their new place and become the new norm. Habits form both ways - productive and hindering.
No system is ever ideal and it's not about finding the proper arrangement right away. Instead it's about not becoming too entrenched with habitual tendencies that clutter up the living space and recognizing the need for re-arrangement as soon as possible.
The road and the adventures along the way is where the focus should be. Less attention to obstructions - more attention on where you are.
