How to Avoid Van Build Burnout

The way to avoid van build burnout is by taking regular breaks and focusing on other projects.

If the van build is all you’re doing, 24/7, then your mind has no rest from it. If you’re going to bed at 1 am after researching solar panels for 3 hours, then wake up at 8 am the next morning to continue with your campervan electrics, van build burnout will catch up with you.

Our Experience with Van Build Burnout

It is interesting how all-consuming a van conversion can become.

When we were in the van build, our life was 40% van build, 30% van research, 20% working (which mostly consisted of filming the van build) and 10% eating/relaxing… so up to 90% of our existence was the van conversion.

And it was great, we loved doing the build and the journey, and figuring all the things out along the way.

Around 8 months in, we hadn’t taken a break from van building or research. We even had trouble remembering how to take a break.

And despite enjoying what we were doing, both of us started feeling overworked and we realised that we grossly underestimated how physically and mentally taxing the van conversion is.

We know that everyone has experienced burnout (for this or that), and a lot of you, especially first-time converters, you want to wrap up the conversion ASAP so we can get on the road and experience vanlife.

That is perfectly normal, and we were no different.

So what reasons cause van build burnout, and how can you overcome them?

A Build is a Huge Task

The first thing to do is to realise that a van build is a monumental task.

Whether you choose to do a very technical van build or a more straightforward design, the research itself can be very overwhelming, especially if you are starting with no experience.

Every time we study something new, whether the electrics or the heating, our brains feel like an overheating computer. I felt flushed, and I might have been sitting the whole day, but I felt exhausted.

So imagine doing that brain-cooking research and then going out to do all the heavy lifting, potentially in the in the cold, whilst continually problem-solving.

Things always take longer than you expect

When we planned what the projected completion date for tasks should be (although we know we overestimate how much we can do in a week), we still ended up expecting to do that task in a shorter time than it’s realistic.

Unrealistic expectation leads to stress.

No matter how much you plan, or how prepared you think you are, there will always be unexpected new steps that will pop up that you won’t be able to ignore.

Without really noticing, that slows you down. And then we find that the most stressful times of the van build are when we are not prepared to deal with problems.

We just want to get on with our checklist, not add to it.

For example, we started to do the van wall cladding.

We spent a week and a half preparing all the different pieces, painting is all, cutting the shapes out etc…

All we had left to do was put up the walls.

Seems simple huh?

So on our checklist we had a single task: “put up walls”

Three days later, some of the cladding was done. Screwing hundreds of screws into the framing took measuring and time. We sometimes had to undo a panel to find out where the framing was behind it…

…so the 100 screws we had to put in we put in the wall, we then had to undo and then put them back after we had solved the problem.

Even after all of that, some panels were missing, and the ones that were up had screws visible which needs to be filled, sanded and repainted again.

Which wasn’t on our list.

The Van Build made us feel like we were chasing our own tails

When we say will finish a task in a day, it can take a week or longer, like our headliner shelf install.

In that time, we hardly took a breath – incredibly, sometimes we wake up having dreamed of the van build stuff. It kind of feels like chasing your own tail.

A lot of this van build has been fine-tuning the pace at which we build.

We want to get things done so badly that we sometimes ignore our basic needs – like food and sleep.

Not good.

That is a sure route to burnout.

So how do we pace ourselves?!

Take a Break

The key to fixing van build burnout is we must allow ourselves to take a break.

Trying to rush things to just ‘get them finished’ won’t make things better.

Usually, what happens when we rush through something is:

1. 5%: We are lucky enough that it turns out fine
2. 60%: It completely bombs, and we have to redo it + spend more money
3. 35%: It is done poorly, leaving us disappointed and regretting the outcome

If we refuse to rush, we can work until 4 am, 5 days in a row, which leaves us shattered… and most likely, we would still make mistakes.

We all need to respect our own needs and pace of building and learning.

For some of us, a van build can take a few months. For others, it can be several years. No matter how long it takes, it’s all fine. We all have our reasons for the way we do things.

Give Yourself Credit for the Van Build

Remember to merit all the tasks and steps you have completed and not just race forward for the mile-long list of things yet to be done.

Don’t undervalue the achievement and the strain behind all the checkmarks.

We write a lot of lists, and we find them incredibly helpful in helping us recognise what we have done.

By writing down the steps we need to take in excruciating detail and then physically crossing out each step. It helps keep things in perspective.

Best Advice to Avoid Van Build Burnout

From one van builder to another, here are some things to bare in mind when the van build is becoming overwhelming:

1. You are not a robot.
2. Eat and sleep.
3. Take time to enjoy hobbies.
4. Problem-solving 24/7 will fry your brain.
5. Recognise what you have already achieved.
6. Give yourself time, instead of a deadline
7. Different tasks take different people different amounts of time
8. There are always unexpected steps and problems with any task
9. We all vastly underestimate how much there is to learn
10. Enjoy the build.

Sit back every now and then with a cup of your favourite hot beverage, take a few paces around your partially completed build, and smile as you remember all the work that went into to creating everything. It’s all you.

You built it.