Shop Organization?

[patrick reif]

my garage looks like a tackle shop blew up in it. There are literally 100's of packs of plastic laying everywhere. Not to mention the spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, jigs, molds, and what-nots everywhere.

What are you guys using to keep it all together?

I gotta do something about it on my next day off. Just gotta.

[bryanmc]

my garage looks like a tackle shop blew up in it. There are literally 100's of packs of plastic laying everywhere. Not to mention the spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, jigs, molds, and what-nots everywhere.

What are you guys using to keep it all together?

I gotta do something about it on my next day off. Just gotta.

Mine looks just like yours. Every time I hook up the boat I swear I'm going to do something about it (one day)

[toadfrog]

ORGANIZATION is being able to remember where you left it at last !

[JSC]

ORGANIZATION is being able to remember where you left it at last !

Thats why I have more than one of many things ... if I can't remember where one is I can usaly find the other one and other things while searching.....

JSC

[nova]

my garage looks like a tackle shop blew up in it. There are literally 100's of packs of plastic laying everywhere. Not to mention the spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, jigs, molds, and what-nots everywhere.

What are you guys using to keep it all together?

I gotta do something about it on my next day off. Just gotta.

Isn't that the way it's supposed to look? lol Just keep the wife out or you won't ever find anything again.

www.novalures.com

[Vodkaman]

I don't know where all this stuff comes from, it just appears over night. You get lazy and don't tidy up once or twice, then it becomes a habit. Then you push stuff to the side to make room for more while telling yourself, "workshops are supposed to look like this".

When it gets too bad, I am going to punish myself by having to make another shelf rack. Problem is I am running out of room for shelf racks. I am sure that mine is no where near as bad as some of yours, but I hate mess.

I am moving to another city soon, and am not looking forward to packing all this junk. I know it is going to take me months to find everything again. That is what happened last time I moved 18 months ago, in fact I am still finding stuff. I have twice as much junk now. People say moving house is stressful, I think they meant workshops, not a few pots and pans.

Dave

Edited October 24, 2010 by Vodkaman

[mark poulson]

When I worked on the job, my work van was, and still is, organized, so I could find whatever I needed quickly, since I was working by the hour, and time is money.

When I built cabinets and fixtures out of my garage, it was organized and neat.

Now I fish a lot, and build lures and pour plastics in my garage, and it's organized differently. I still have all my woodworking machines, and a big 4'X8' central work table, but now they're covered with fishing stuff. And there's a couple of racks with rod and reel setups, and drawers of lure making parts and stuff.

I know where everything is, so that's all that matters.

[mark poulson]

Well, I am still a communications contractor, and I found that a certain amount of organized chaos seems to be the most efficient. I've been installing and trouble shooting as a licensed contractor for 17 years. You have to know were your stuff is and have a system, but I always out produce the guys with a pristine perfectly neat and perfectly organized service truck. Usually about 2-1. Even now and I'm a middle aged cripple with bad lungs. Of course part of that is because some of the neat freaks are tweakers. They will spend an entire day cleaning their truck and never get to a job site and then ask if you are willing to pay overtime for them to do the job. They don't last long.

When I am doing a ton of work, I'll rough clean and rough organize my truck about once a week, but I try and limit myself to no more than 1-2 hours max to do it. That seems to be the best compromise. Back when I had 5 installers we used to line the trucks up in the driveway and empty them out on the ground every Monday morning. That way I knew who had lost tools, and who needed more equipment or materials that were supposed to be in each truck. It also gave a pretty good gage as to who was actually producing and who was riding on the other guys.... and who was a freaking drug addict who would not be coming back on Tuesday.

Drugs are a bad deal. I dealt with cocaine crack addicts on the job, but I left before this whole meth deal became such a huge problem. One of my buddies has 45 employees, and he is constantly having to deal with tweakers. It's a different world.