Anybody know where I put my............??

[James Tibbetts]

Rick I don't know where they are. I've been standing in this room for 10 minutes looking around trying to remember why I came in here; but I don't see the tools.

[Rick Moyer]

Coffee on the monitor . As pathetic as it sounds I have a spreadsheet. There are pages for every storage cabinet / place in the shop, shed and house. I started this years ago and there is a shortcut right on the desktop for it. Whenever I look for a tool for more than a couple of minutes, I add it to the spreadsheet right when I find it. A tool I cannot locate in a moment or two defines it as something I use seldom. Am I seriously supposed to remember that the replacement brushes for my ROS are in the 3rd drawer of the flap sander stand or that the graphite paper that I line my sander platens with is in a plastic shoebox on the the second shelf of the left hand shelf unit in the shed? These things get forgotten so I have the spreadsheet; I call it my Ginko Biloba.

Glenn, over the years your posts have been very helpful and informative. This revelation, however, has made me feel better about myself than anything else to date! I am occasionally AR, but you've put my mind at ease.

[Stephen Tashiro]

I am getting really tired of not remembering where I put tools. It has gotten to the point where I have some that seem permanently lost.

Why should you be tired? You should be happy. Not finding a tool is an excellent justification for buying another one. It explains why I have so many screwdrivers.

If wireless telephone electronics gets more miniaturized perhaps there will be little gizmos that you can stick on tools that ring when you "call" the tool. You could keep the list of tools' numbers on your smart phone.

[Rick Potter]

Hey, Bert fessed up and told me where he put them....in the drawer under the bench vise. Thanks Bert.

OK Bert. Not nice. I just went out and looked, and I don't even have a drawer under my bench vise. Did someone take that too?

I do keep track of tools I loan out. There are only three people I will loan to, and I put those on a list, stapled to a cabinet door so it won't walk away too.

It is nice to know I am not alone in this. Part of my problem is too much stuff. Gotta thin the herd some more, so I will have room for new stuff.

[Myk Rian]

Tools? Is that all you've mis-placed?
Heck. I lose everything I put someplace so as to NOT lose.

[Brian Elfert]

I can never find my tools when I need them. They are scattered all over the place. It doesn't help that I basically have no shelving, cabinets, or peg board to store tools. It makes it hard to find tools when none of them have a home. I also have a really bad habit of just dropping a tool the last place I used it. Most of my tools are stored in my walkout basement, but I also do a lot of work in my detached garage. I'm not going to take tools back to the basement every time I'm not using them for an hour or two, but that means they often never get back to the basement.

Every time I try to organize my tools and such I get overwhelmed and it never gets done. Right now I don't have places for the tools anyhow. When I have had places for tools in the past I wasn't always disciplined enough to put things back. I also have a lot of tools and such in Rubbermaid Roughneck bins. It is hard to find stuff in an opaque bin that is 16" deep.

In high school the wood shop had perfect tool control. There was a tool cage and every single tool no matter how small had a specific spot in the tool cage. Cleanup would start about 10 minutes before end of class and every tool had to be in place before we could leave the shop.

[Lamar Keeney]

LIL here, Putting things in a safe place will get you every time. I was given some very good advice once about keeping things in place, but sadly I forgot who gave it and what it was. But anyway I think this organized thing is overrated. I tried it several times and spent more time putting things in their place than it took to get the job done. So what works for me is when I got a job to do I throw what I think I'll need in a carpenters tote and the rest in a five gallon bucket and then figure out what I left behind when I get there.

Now depending on how tired or aggravated at the end of the job as to weather I put things back, it doesn't really matter that much cause if I go looking for something and it's not there all I have to remember is which bucket to look in.

Decides I think that organized folks are really just to lazy to look for it.

YMMV

[Brian Elfert]

Organized shops/work spaces are typically much easier to work in than those that are not organized. I know from working in both types of shops. The only organized shop that doesn't work is if the organizer used some sort of obtuse organizing scheme.

I help out on construction projects at a Scout camp that has a good sized shop. It is pretty much a joy to work in because the work spaces are mostly clear and everything is organized. The only downside is none of the many cabinets are labeled, but I have been in the shop enough times to know where most everything is now. They even have a mini hardware store with bins of various materials as it is a two hour round trip to go to town. Outside under an overhang is a huge lumber rack with enough different types of lumber to make about any small repair you can think of. Lumber is delivered for larger projects.

[Wade Lippman]

Five years ago I put my glasses on the dresser at bedtime and never saw them again. Searched everywhere for hours; gone.

Common story you say? Nope.
A month earlier I was at the Penn & Teller show in LV. Penn made my glasses disappear and rematerialize on Teller. I think there was some magical residue on them.

[Chris Parks]

I really do envy guys who are disciplined enough to put there tools in a specific place and then put them there when not using them. I have tried doing this, I really have! I do it for maybe a few days, but then one day I look up and tools are all over the place. I just can't do it! Plus it really does slow me down and breaks my work flow. Just as soon as I put something away, I need it again and gotta go get it out again. What a PITA! It is just not in my DNA.

But the work flow suffers when you can't find what you need usually in the middle of a glue up or similar. I had a my workshop organised for years and knew where everything was and I put tools back when I was finished with them, all very orderly. I then inherited a complete workshop including machinery and had to change everything around and could find nothing which made me not want to be in there as the enjoyment was gone. About two years ago I took the big plunge and did a complete re-model and now I know where everything is again most of the time. In the end it is more efficient to put it back then try and find it which is very frustrating and leads to things being thrown around and many curse words being used.

[Chris Parks]

Five years ago I put my glasses on the dresser at bedtime and never saw them again. Searched everywhere for hours; gone.

Common story you say? Nope.
A month earlier I was at the Penn & Teller show in LV. Penn made my glasses disappear and rematerialize on Teller. I think there was some magical residue on them.

I was so short sighted when I was younger that if I could not find my glasses in the morning I had to get someone to help me. I can recall being alone in the house after a heavy night of alcohol and having to phone a friend to come and find them for me. I have since had lens implants and life is good.

[Keith Westfall]

Part of my problem is too much stuff. Gotta thin the herd some more, so I will have room for new stuff.

I don't think you can actually have "too much stuff".

Let me explain...

If we only have one of an item, it is pretty easy to lose it. Even if we put it back in it's proper spot, SOMEONE will come along and use it and move it, and then it's lost.

Now, if we have more than just one, of the same tool, having someone 'lose it', is not such a big deal. So it follows that the frustration level (of 'misplacing' tools) is lower, thereby allowing us to be more creative in the shop.

Now it would be nice when we get to the point of having 'extra' tools, if we could have a good, practicable place to keep them organized, but then it is again pretty easy to misplace that container of tools. So it must be better keeping them all in a different place, which prevents loosing them all at once...

So I end up with one here, one there, and one..., well you get the idea.

Not a perfect process yet, but I think I'm gaining a bit...

If I just had a couple more measuring tapes...

[glenn bradley]

I've been standing in this room for 10 minutes looking around trying to remember why I came in here;

I call that living in the hereafter; I walk into a room and say "what did I come in here after?".

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Here's a true story for ya. My shop used to be an unholy mess. There were literally piles of tools, car parts, wood, and who knows what all over any horizontal, and some vertical surfaces. One week I spent each day getting it all organized. I had drawers for each type of tool, shelves for the wood, a cabinet for paint, epoxy, etc. My wife was so happy to see it organized at last.

Then came the next project. I couldn't find a darned thing. Where is my Allen wrench set? It used to be piled under some VW parts in that corner. Which drawer is it in now? Where are my lineman's pliers? Did I put them in the pliers drawer or the electrical toolbox?

It it was a nightmare until after the next few projects and things started to pile up again in little piles here and there where I could find them.

Today things are all organized in drawers, and I have finally memorized which drawer has which tool, and I must say it is a lot better unless I need a tool I don't use very often, and usually I can find it by knowing where not to look rather than where to look.

[Wade Lippman]

I was so short sighted when I was younger that if I could not find my glasses in the morning I had to get someone to help me. I can recall being alone in the house after a heavy night of alcohol and having to phone a friend to come and find them for me. I have since had lens implants and life is good.

Was that a matter of choice, or following cataract surgery?
I am much interested in it, but my ophthalmologist has been assuring me for 10 years that I should wait until next year for them to perfect it.