organized people

Stopped in a fellas shop a week ago and it was so neat it looked more like an operating room than a shop!

I have come to the conclusion that organized people are just too lazy to look for things.....

Yep we got a coupel guys like that up here....But u know what,,,,The 1 guy had a big booze problom and the other guy had a metel disorder and from time to time he would check himsesf in,,,nice guy , both of them but kinda sad,,,,now me on the other hand am a pig,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but im still half nuts,,,,he he ,,o well..lol

Nice one Larry! I guess I am no neat freak, but I tend to have to have things in a "certain way" or it feels wrong for me. All my screwdrivers have to be face up, sockets have the lock holes lined up, etc. Just some silly quirks. Needless to say, I know pretty fast if you borrow. I also have never lost a tool.

On the other hand, I work for a guy that has a garage half full of new low quality tools ready to go so when you need something he can't find. I bet there are over 50 5/8 wrenches around there, and maybe 2 9/16 wrenches (easily found). I personally cannot stand working in a mess like that, and rather be considered a "lazy organized person!"

I guess I fall somewhere between being organized and total chaos. On my service truck there is a place for everything and said item always goes back in the place it was taken from or there isn't room for it. In the shop I try my best to stay organized but I can't manage to do it to save me. It seems like everytime I get it like I want it I get something new and have to move everything I just found a place for to a new place. For instance my 'new to me' lathe takes up nearly 14 feet of the back wall. That required moving a table mounted drill press, a 15T punch press, a shelf, and a cabinet I had just moved into place about three months back.....Now where to put everything to get it out of the middle of the floor when all the wall space is already taken up.....and I can't add on more to the shop until I at least get some more storage built so my wife (and me too) can get the house orgainzed like we want it......

We had an office meeting a few years ago that discussed the order or disorder of ones desk. Research says that people whose desk looks like a bomb went off are more productive than those who keep a tight ship. I'm somewhere in the middle but like everything else some rules don't apply in all situations.
The guy that sat next to me never filed anything in a filing cabinet, kept everything out on his desk and to most people it looked like he could close a landfill with what was on his desk. If you needed something and he had it he could just reach into the pile and grab it. He never lost anything, I'd trust him with my SSN.

(quoted from post at 20:21:26 03/21/11) Stopped in a fellas shop a week ago and it was so neat it looked more like an operating room than a shop!

I have come to the conclusion that organized people are just too lazy to look for things.....

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And too cheap to buy multiples....Sickening ain't it??????????

I will tell you right now that ANY machinist who has cutting tools and other items scattered all over and hap hazardly laying in tool boxes will be inefficient. Which also relates to being less productive. If you spend 10% of your time looking for drills/cutters/reamers/other tooling then you are worth 10% less then the organized guy.

A messy desk is what they call a single-layer random-access horizontal filing system.

I am EXTREMELY organized-don't understand people who are not. I knew a facilities manager whose desk was stacked almost 2 feet deep with 'stuff'. You did not dare to move ANYTHING, as he knew what it was you took!

I can't organize to save my life. I just end up moving things around. My brain is the same way. It does however allow me to look at problems from different angles and come up with unusual solutions (sometimes).

I pick up and put away every 2-3 days during an extended project. During spring summer fall the norm is to drop everything and get back in the seat and back on the job when done with the repair and pick up later. I know a guy who could entertain the pope and serve dinner in the middle of his auto repair shop he keeps it so clean and organized.

I had a boss that had nothing on his desk, and that's just what he did, and was good for, but they loved his low handicap on the course.

My brother, an Electrical Engineer, has this sign on his desk:

[b:9162a2b677][i:9162a2b677]If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is an empty desk the sign of?[/i:9162a2b677][/b:9162a2b677]

Tim

Not that I want to be flat out a mess but we found when we did not put the tools back precise and in a pattern that the borrowing of tools went down considerably. Regardless of when we used a particular tool last we were always able to find a tool even if it was out of place.
I don't mind helping somebody out but it got to be a headache to get things back home. If something was not to be found we could often look in the driveway to see fresh tracks that did not match our vehicles.

One engineer I worked with had a desk so messy that I threatened to replace it with a 5 yard dumpster.

Nah,some kind of mental illness. OCD.

"Too lazy to look for things and too cheap to buy doubles" I've just found a couple new one-liners to steal.

I've been trying my whole adult life to be "organized, neat, and tidy" Everything has it's rightful place, but sadly, I must be too lazy to put it there until the mess is overwhelming.

My weakness is "buckets".. I work on a project say in the driveway (shop isn't big enough to get tall things indoors) so I put what I need in a 5-gal bucket, coffee can, etc.. Carry it out, and when I'm done, I just set the bucket back inside.. I been emptying buckets and cans and crates for the last month, off and on.

It's been nearly 15 years of trying to change, still looks like a bomb went off in the shop (and sadly, the house isn't a lot better..) But, I'm making small improvements.. I no longer let tools lay on the floor, where I last used em, and the dirty laundry makes it to the laundry basket these days (and sometimes the clean clothes even get folded!!).. Oh, and trying to focus on finishing 1 project before starting 10 others (unless there is a "priority project") if I keep it up, and by the time I die I ought to be organized.

Brad

Well said Larry. We go to many farm shops, and it seems that those with little to do, spend their time organising. Those that have a busy schedule, are less so.

I once worked for a guy that knew where everything was. I always said he should know, because he climbed over it every half hr.

As far as productivity, many shops are organised, but the clock is runnuing while they clean, and put everything back. I wonder if they would do so if the customer or boss wasn't paying them to do so.

My lady friends twenty five year old daughter is extreemly organised----even called a wack job by most. It seems it runs in the family, becase the daughters two year old son keeps every toy in a straight line, and placed in the toy box when not in use.

A guy that works for me is far more organised than I am, but it seems that type must do one thing only, then when that task is completed they can then take on the next step. Productivity is very poor. I will never take on a man like that again, often we have men waiting for him in order to start the next step. He can not help it, that is the way his mind works.

The other guys will take on step two, and when there isn't work for a one guy, he can drop back, and complete step one, instead of just watching the others till there is a need for him.

This last week I timed three men stripping out a barn roof for steel. One side each 2 x 4 was nailed down completly before the next one was placed on the roof. This makes the man slinging the lumber have to wait while the other two nail it down.

The other side, the board was dropped in place, and two nails tacked it down. After all lumber was placed, the man swinging the lumber came up, and also nailed. The savings of man hrs was almost two hrs on one side (times 3 men) by just nailing each end. I was even a little surprised, but they all agreed it was faster, just more moving around on the steep roof.

I came up with an idea that kinda helps.

Wife is a packrat, came home with a shopping cart that was being thrown out by the supermarket. What am I supposed to do with that? Well, it was one of those high-frame types, so I took the basket off, leaving the rolling frame, and put a stainless steel butt plate from a milking parlor on it- about 1.5 X 2.5 feet- with the one inch lip up.

I put my most commonly used tools on it, and that's where they live. Set of combination wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, vise-grips, socket set (mounted on an organizer), extensions, etc. Each type of tool has a general area where it lives, but nothing formal. Things tend to get disorganized over time, so I occassionally straighten it out and put the extras that have accumulated back into the tool box.

I especially try to keep stuff picked up off the floor, mainly for safety reasons- ever stepped on a 9/16 socket on a concrete floor? Can be hazardous ro your health.

More than on study has concluded that being organized saves you more time. Unorganized people are just to lazy to clean up. Whats the use of having a shop if it is filled with clutter and junk.

I have a spot for everything in my toolbox at work, and most things make it back, but when it's time to go I ussually have a job in the machine so I may not put everything away every day. I try to go through atleast once a month and put all my tools away and take a quick visual tool count.

At home is a different story and I'm still working on my garage and inside the house.

At work when we were slow or when I had tons of run time and only 1 machine to run I would organize our bolts. Our head service/assembly guy had a 5 gal. bucket that was his phuck-et bucket, where he'd throw every loose fastener had had leftover in it, as well as some other crap. One week when my machine was running all day every day I went through that bucket and a couple boxes, and all of the loose metric hardware that hadn't found a home yet. Kept me busy, the boss happy, and our service guy hasn't started a new bucket yet, and it's been since November or December.

Plus, if you need any fastener in the shop I can tell you if we've got it, and where to find it. Been asked many times since my initial organization over a year ago.

Donovan from Wisconsin

I strongly disagree with your statement. I have racks made for every wrench and socket I own. My tools go back into the same place at the end of each job. I don"t waste time "looking" for something while I am being paid. Plus I have found "missed" wrenches in the equipment I have repaired. The best was a Snap On wrench laying in the transmission of a JD 4455 I bought. The seller told me he had just had the transmission gone through and it did not last for a year. He sold it at a steep discount. That wrench went through the gears and did several thousand dollars of damage.

So before any equipment is deemed done I clean up and put everything away. I still have tools that My Great Grand Father owned. Those that leave things lay all over loose too many tools.

My thoughts exactly! My old neighbor would spend 2 hours getting all the stones out of his studded snow tires before putting them away for the summer...when they sold their house, Stanley Steamer would show up after every open house. I decided life was too short to live that way many years ago.....

I took several bangs on the head growing up like a lot of others but had an extra hard one a few years ago. Short term memory sucks. I still have phone numbers in my head that I called a few times 30+ years ago but sometimes have a hard time with last week. I'm always finding doubles and sometimes triples of stuff. Just had one of these delivered yesterday as a last ditch effort to keep my stuff together (as long as I stay on top of it and don't forget where I put it :roll: ). Easy to loke about stuff but sometimes it gets pretty frustrating.

My rule of thumb seems to be "one layer." When a second layer of tools, parts, rags, whatever, starts to form, it's time to clean up.

I've also been known to walk to another building to get a wrench, walk back and remove one bolt, walk back to put the wrench away, walk back to find out there's another bolt to remove, walk back to get the wrench again, walk back and remove the next bolt, walk back to put the wrench away, walk back to find another bolt, walk back to get the same wrench a third time, walk back to remove the third bolt, walk back to put the wrench away...

Suffice it to say I now keep a full set of wrenches in both buildings. All that walking is good exercise, but when it takes an hour to remove a wheel because your OCD side keeps putting the %$#@ wrench away, IN ANOTHER BUILDING, your sensible side gets seriously pi$$ed.

" Laziness is the mother of invention" , " Laziness breeds efficiency" , " Work smart , not hard" . Let's face it people , your body only has so many "miles" designed into it based on your geneology. Why waste them trying to be "The Man"?? " The Man" will die earlier than "The Brain"!