Inception Packing

Modular packing ideas to streamline carrying

As a bag designer, I’m fortunate enough to have access to more bags than I can use. This does however mean regularly swapping between them, depending on daily tasks or professionalism level required. To help deal with this, I run with ‘inception packing’…

For anyone that hasn’t seen the movie, Inception plays with the idea of dreams within dreams, layering the ideas like a series of Russian Matryoshka dolls.

My Inception packing runs on a similar theme; getting smaller bags to pack inside other bags. And it’s not just a pencil case, but rather pouches that group a set of contents together for quick access and fast transfer. Think of it as the Bento box style of packing for your tech gear, with sets within sets.

For example, I run with a quick tech pack module which contains an iThingy cable, standard USB cable, mouse, cleaning cloth and a couple of flash drives. Perfect for swapping a bag from leisure mode into work pack, and able to work in any bag from a sophisticated laptop backpack to a simple tote number.

This is especially helpful as a freelancer, pick up and move on as needs be.

There are other methods, for example the previously mentioned ‘grid it’, that would take more energy to setup than I willing to give (and many users report frustration at getting it to work as well as the pictures show).

Inception packing is more OCD than just pulling stuff from one bag into another, but much less than the grid it compulsive organisation. Now the trick is to incorporate appropriate extra pouches into a commercial bag without looking like a diaper bag!

Of course this modular approach is not new. There’s some sweet systems throughout the carry world, with backpacking and travel being some of the main applications. They range from versatile see through packing cubes to complete modular travel bag systems…

Is anyone else willing to identify as inception packers?

Do you have a novel application of it?

Or is it just me?

– James Jeffrey