how the fuck are you meant to keep your shop from becoming a disaster?today i was just looking around in my garage and it's a god damn hellscape. there's shit everywhere. shelves are full of shit. every flat surface has shit on it. i don't understand how you can have a tidy shop, but also know where everything is.i tried to do bins. i had a rack of tubs with tools that i don't use very often, but i'd have to pull out like 4 different tubs and open them to see if the thing i'm looking for is inside, and then dig around to find the fucking thing and by that point i just find some other tool that will do the job good enough and use that instead.there has to be a better way.
>>2683319i am the same mess, my garage has shit just on the floor because "tidying up" isn't a projecti think people with IQs over 70 just know that maintenance activities (cleaning, cooking, organizing, laundry, etc.) are mandatory while everything else is noti too know this is true but every fiber of my being fights it because that means in some sense that i am a cleaning, cooking, and organizing machine that occasionally does other stuff. and i hate that notion
>>2683319>Tool boxes/carts are your friend. Look for them at garage sales, estate sales, Marketplace, Craigslist, etc. Never buy new except maybe the HF tool cart.>Categorize. Electrical shit on these shelves, plumbing in those bins, automotive in this tool chest, dildos in these drawers, you get the idea.>Label your fucking bins you goddamn sperg.>Stop getting blackout drunk when you work on projects.>Put shit away when you're done with it.And lastly>Don't try to cram in more shit than you have space.
>>2683342You make it seem so easy.>>2683319Idk.>>2683330Nah man. Teacher says I’m smart.
>>2683319You gotta learnt to embrace the mess. It seems like I'm in a constant state of organizing and putting things away and building storage solutions for stuff... I have a long ways to go, but I do have things mostly organized. It's a lifelong pursuit.
>>2683319>i don't understand how you can have a tidy shop, but also know where everything isEither you need to do full inventory and toss everything outside while you clean and then carefully take stuff back OR you just embrace the mess and know instantly where that one random screw from that old bicycle is in what pile on the floor.
It's just like any mess. Don't get overwhelmed and just clean a little bit as you have time. Clean off one shelf or one drawer a day. Don't just shove it somewhere else. Actually put it where it goes. Plastic coffee cans are my go to for all my nuts and bolts or really anything that will fit in them that doesn't have its own case. Then I sharpie the contents on the lid and on the front, and they stack great
>>2683319Shop rule #1:Cleanup is the end of every single job, every single time. Plus you put everything away at the end of each day/shift/work session. No excuses, except in emergencies. In my many years as an engineer and welder, I've met ONE single person who actually worked better with a mess. Lots of people say they work better with a mess, but they are usually fat and lazy, or just useless.No shame though, getting to that starting line of having everything sorted and organized is a long, uphill battle.Step one: Overcome nostalgia. I have worked extensively with my father and both my grandfathers. I know nostalgia like no other. I love the most random crappy broken tool with all my heart just because my dad looked at it one time. You have to overcome that. Nostalgia is probably 80-90% an illusion, or a lie in your mind. Take a picture, write a poem, and then throw the junk out. Throw out more than you want to.Step two. Take EVERYTHING off and out of everywhere, and sort it into categories. If you have a big shop where lots of people work, you'll have to do this in stages, and it's much harder. But a garage, you can do it.Step three, organize it. Organize everything and use plastic totes, ziploc bags, milk crates, tool boxes, tool boards, whatever. Get it sorted out.Step four. There is no way to do step three correctly. Once you have it all organized, you will find that 60-80% of it is wrong. That's OK. Now it's cleaned up, and you can handle things one at a time. You don't like how your sockets are sorted? Pull our your sockets and reorganize them. You can fix things one at a time now.
>>2683319The hard thing is eventually you gotta toss the shit if you haven’t touched in in 5 years and there’s a <50% chance you’re going to touch it in 5 years. It’s annoying having to buy/procure the 0.05% of things you will actually need in the future, but if you really toss all the crap that you should be tossing, it’s easy to forgive yourself.
>>2683511Moving sucks, but I’ve moved a couple times over the past decade and that’s a good way to really figure out what you need and what’s trash.
>>268331910 years in paint just for you
>>2683330>attemp moon landing>miss>die a slow, miserable lonely deathwhat a dumb quote
>start cleaning and organizing shop>think of really useful thing I could build to help organize stuff>end up at end of day with barely any cleaning and organizing done and a half-finished project>next day>start cleaning and organizing shop>think of really useful thing I could build to help organize stuff>...
>>2683639i hate this.not only half finished projects or whatever, but also like, an ice cream maker i was gifted and now lives in my kitchen cabinet, or shirts that "are totally fine" but i never fucking wear.i struggle with throwing out a "perfectly good" thing
>>2683319Every hour of work should have an hour of maintaining your tools and putting shit back where it goes.
>>2683319Bins. Shelves and fucking bins. And bins before you need them. I standardized on basically 3 main types of binsSmall sterilite shoe box style bins, medium ones that are slightly larger, and larger flip top totes with interlocking lids, so you can't lose the lids. I also occasionally use milk crates to store larger things that don't need to be sealed as well.I keep a stash of empty bins in the corner so that if I need to store something I have a bin right then and there and can store it instead of shoving it somewhere "for later"Put your shit in a bin then label it. I have bins for almost everything that is involved in my hobbies.Bike shit? Bin. Custom Hot Wheels? Bin. Airbrush paints? Bin. Motherboards? Bin. Graphics cards? Bin. Camping shit? Milk crate. Nasty yard chemicals? Milk crate. Electrical shit? Bin. If you are doing a project or involved in a hobby but stop after a while due to lost interest, put that shit in a bin and revisit it when you get the itch again. Every bin gets a theme every bin gets labeled with that. If you're starting from square 1 you define something you know you can fill a bin with and do that. Take shit that is scattered and bring it together. Use your vertical space. Shelving is critical. Buy shelves that fit your bins. I like either the quantum storage solutions (or compatible knockoff brand ones) notched tube wire racks, or the muscle racks. Cheap. Simple build, hold my shit, and I can collapse them if I no longer need them assembled.Lastly, I keep a large trash can near my work bench. It takes me a good while to completely fill it. If the can isn't full, I'm more likely to throw shit away that needs to be thrown away instead of keep it around because I don't feel like filling up the trash can that I just changed the bag in and having to take it out again.
>>2683775This reminds me that I have to toss some t-shirts I haven’t worn for years. 3 drawers full and I wear the same dozen shirts most of the time.
>>2683319>have something in your hands>put it down in closest spot99% of the issue
>>2684137This is how I lose my flashlight at least 4 times during any activity that requires it.
>>2683625This is good advice. Except maybe the 'pull it all out and do it all at once' part, that's a recipe for just making it worse, getting overwhelmed, and walking away angry. Except you can't because it's all out and now you're obliged to stuff it all back somewhere.One basic way to sort your shit is into tools and hardware. Hardware items (materials, stuff like hinges, bits of wood, nails) should be seperate to tools (things you use to make stuff). Within tools, consumables can be separated as well.Small/medium hardware and consumables are good candidates for sorting into bins/totes. Tools are good candidates for setting up dedicated easy-access storage.Main thing is keep em separate. Digging through packs of nails to find your screwdriver is stupid shit.
>>2684199Oh yeah, sometimes you can also store by theme. I have tools specifically for working on bikes, stored separately from my general tools. Same with the consumables I use to maintain the car (fluids, carwash gear).Cuts through a lot of the specialist crap that you're not gonna need 95% of the time, and when you do it needs to be a focus.
For hand tools I have wall mounted pegboard to store them above my bench. If I'm not using it within the next 5 minutes it goes back on the board without exception. Bigger stuff like power tools gave their own dedicated shelf and follow the same rule. If I'm working away from the bench I use a bucket to store tools and make sure to empty it after each job. For half finished projects or repairs everything that comes off anything is stored in ziplock bags that are then taped to it or otherwise stored in the same tote. Fasteners get there own tote and are kept in the package the came in or clearly marked plastic tubs. I've a dedicated misc tub where every orphaned piece of hardware goes and is my bucket of last resort if I need to bodge something together and can't find the right nut or bolt.
>>2683342Mostly this. >>2683319OP the easiest tips I can give you is to put things back when you're done using them. Another is to go to Walshart and buy a bunch of their storage mini boxes they have. I use that to sort tools and essentially breakdown my mess into boxes messes. I keep these boxes organized and neat because it helps facilitate finding things later.The drawers of my work benches are all nightmares though that just hold big tools.
>>2684309This is why I like having plenty of trays and pans around. The hospital pans are great for leaky assemblies or hoses, these silicone trays or even like a cheap baking sheet for fasteners and tools, I always put the socket or wrench back on the tray so my 10mm doesn’t drive off. Mag dishes are great too.HF sells these silicone trays now, but they’re fairly expensive. Everybody sells the same 3 sizes, HF has them individually, Walmart has the same thing under the Hyper Tough brand in a 3pc kit for less than HF would cost, and I think mine came from Amazon. They’re not really cheap if you want the real silicone, but they work well.
>>2683319Start giving stuff away. I got a shipping container because my shop was full and all I did with more space is full that up too.
>>2684088Very good advice. Last year I went through and through every single plastic tote I had in the trash, and bought the black and yellow costco totes for EVERYTHING. This way, each one is the same size, and they are more durable than most. Inside each one I may have lots of other, smaller containers, and in some I have one or two bigger things. Masking tape and sharpies with labels all over the outside. It's so great for home storage organization.
>>2683319Homelessness is a big problem for people. It's nicer if everyone has a place to live. Same exact thing applies to your shop. Every tool, part, or object needs to have a home. This home is owned by that thing, and nothing else can live there. Things can visit, but they cannot stay. You are the dictator of your things. If you let everything migrate to places that aren't their home, you haven't done a good job of keeping order. You need to know where everything lives, or create a system to help you figure out where everything lives. I think this is probably the same philosophy behind Jordan Peterson's "clean your room" mentality. Or that one navy video where the guy tells you to just make your bed. It's all based in the same natural truths to order vs. chaos. Once you start getting one area in your life figured out, the rest will follow.These are meme videos, but honestly, I've learned some really great things from them. Obviously, these are little DIYers, but they've adopted some good principles here and there. Take what you can from this and leave the rest.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49p1JVLHUoshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncZ1mO8mA44I keep a tidy shop, but it has taken YEARS of trial and error, and I'm always trying to improve. One thing I really try to avoid is exactly the problem you're having; digging around for the thing you want. Maybe go on the internet and start looking at machine shops. They have millions of things, and they have great systems for organization. You can adopt those systems to your needs, and make your own version of them.Discipline is the ONLY way to keep your shop from becoming a disaster.
>>2684471thanks for the meme videos. there are useful morsels within them.
>>2683319Its hard to throw things away. Worse there are a lot of times now I've thrown things away and needed them later. The only advice I've got is maximize volume use through stacked bins and get rid of retarded level duplicates (15 hammers etc.)
>>2683319As long as you can find shit, when you need it, it's good enough. An extreme example of this would be a guy that I used to know. He wasn't a professional mechanic - he was way beyond that - could've easily been an engineer. He repaired or rebuilt an incredible number of vehicles and his shop was a fucking mess. He'd finish with a car, pull it out and there'd be a thick ring of tools and parts on the floor. He'd pull in the next project and get right back to work. He never bothered to put a damned thing away.
>>2684471>Homelessness is a big problem for people.their problems is not having a home, their problem is drugs and mental illness. they are incapable of owning a home.
The solution I ended up doing was adding a raspberry pi and cheap monitor to the garage and keeping spreadsheets with the locations of tools in numbered tubs and bins. Any time I need something and don't know where it is, I just type in the first few letters of the name and know where it is. Each item is numbered for the tub it belongs in so putting everything back is simple.
>>2684598i do drugs and have mental illness, and if i didn't have a home that would be a problem.
>>2683319Not sureI probably clean up my shed once every few weeks but then it goes like this. For context i can't leave my tools in my truck because they'll get stolen by tweakers>going to work in morning>realize i need tool that is in whatever box>i dump out box on the floor and grab tool then leave without cleaning it up>get home from work>too tired to do anything>put my tool bags on floor at start of garage because i don't want to have to walk over the big pile of tools at the start>every few mornings the same thing happens again and the mess gets bigger
>>2683319Clean up, then get too depressed to consider moving anything. Works every time.
>>2683319Spring cleaning. Every year
I'm currently doing some major reorganization of my shop and surrounding land. You know you're doing the hugest of things when you gotta use google earth satellite imagery to help plan your next chess moves...
>>2683319>i had a rack of tubs with tools that i don't use very often, but i'd have to pull out like 4 different tubs and open them to see if the thing i'm looking for is insideget a label printer and literally print all of the contents of each box on the outside. the only thing you now have to do is put the shit back in the box it actually came from. eventually you'll likely memorize the contents and their location.
>>2684176>put something down while working>it vanishes from existencemany such cases
>>2683319categorizationboxesdrawers
>>2683639My sister opens up Christmas cards and immediately throws them away. I have taken her energy and applied it to my life and when I moved recently I threw out almost all my stuff because I have no use for it.It feels good to reduce all the shit I have.My parents weren’t hoarders, but they kept useless shit all the time, and my dad’s shop was a fucking mess, and I don’t want to deal with that.Throw out useless shit anons. If you think you can use it, try using it immediately, otherwise toss it.
>>2684763>Christmas cards and immediately throws them awayi was packing up boxes to move and found a stack of christmas cards. there was a set of like, 5 consecutive christmases from my grandparents. two being from both of them and 3 being from just my grandmother after my grandpa died. i don't know. i'm glad i kept them. it's good to feel.
>>2684870This. Some of them have sentimental value and should be kept. I mean how much room does 5 cards take up? Now if you're keeping every single Christmas card you ever got you have a fucking problem and should start de-cluttering.
>>2684471>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49p1JVLHUos [Embed]>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncZ1mO8mA44 [Embed]These videos are shit. Your time would be better spent organizing rather than shuffling thru their shit music and weird cut scenes.
>>2684925>shuffling thru their shit music and weird cut scenes.I made it to 1:22 in the first one. I think I deserve some sort of prize.
>>2684948I watched them both. The 10 bullets one had some ok into in it, but nothing groundbreaking or even more than common sense really.
