15 min at a time

[Rick Potter]

Rich,

You obviously haven't heard of the Shop Elf Sequestration program, besides they are all in California this time of year.

Rick Potter

[Robert Payne]

I know it is time for me to clean up my shop when I need to turn sideways to get through to another area ... sadly, I've been doing the sidestep for about 2 years, so I need a "month of Sundays" to clean mine up -- maybe this thread will be an inspiration for some perspiration!

[Rich Engelhardt]

But I had to take a step back and say the shop IS the project, and be patient and just enjoy the process of cleanup/organization.

I like that idea - that the shop shape is the project!

[Harry Hagan]

Anyhow - my grand plan is to spend 15 min a day for the next month putting things away and cleaning up the shop getting it ready for nicer weather..

Good idea/bad idea or what?

Rich,

Let me state up front that I’m an expert at this. That is, an expert at putting off a job of this magnitude.

Your fifteen minutes at a time strategy is a good approach. It usually works for me if I start with clearing a holding area to put stuff until its rightful place is uncovered. The key is to focus on a specific area and achieve your goal for that space—however small.

Most people need a sense of success and accomplishment so they don’t get frustrated and lose the motivation. Good luck with the project!

[Stephen Cherry]

15 minutes, or 30 minutes, is a great way to chip away at things. Eventually they'll get done.

[Ben Hatcher]

The 15 minute approach is generally used as a motivation tool for unsavory tasks. But the goal is to devote at least 15 min before you quit, not to limit your work to 15 min. My last "15" minute clean up lasted 6 hours and resulted in several new cabinets I'd been thinking about and a spotless shop. Good luck.

[Wade Lippman]

You have to make a place for everything, and return it to its place as soon as you are done with it. Clean up scraps as soon as you make them. All will be well when you take an organized approach to your shop. You will never have to spend any time cleaning up if you keep it clean.

Well, that is what you should do. I just needed a pair of ear muffs. I have 6 pair so that one is always in reach. It took me 10 minutes to find any of them. God only knows where the other 5 pair are.

[Randy Hopwood]

I am a counter. I will put 25, 50 or 100 things in their rightful place. When the item is in my hand I put it where it belongs. That item maybe a scrap of paper or a wood screw. A horizontal surface is my enemy!! Large EMPTY trash cans are a priority. Do not fear the dumpster. Why cripple your creative workspace with empty boxes and 8" 2x4. I enjoy the shop organization as much as the projects.

[John P. Smith]

15 min at a time would not work for me. I would be going backwards. 15 min of clean up/put up followed by a few hours of work and the mess would be right back where I started, or worse. Only way I can clean up is to stop every thing else, clean up, then go back to messing up. Horizontal surfaces are so necessary in a shop, or I would eliminate them all.

['Jacques Malan']

I manage a 9000 square feet workshop.

I've got 10 people whose primary job is to carry wood into the workshop and make sawdust on different projects. When a job on a machine is finished the area around it is swept, and every Friday afternoon before closing everybody work together on cleaning for 90 minutes.

That is not really enough, and dust and off-cuts do end up in corners and create hot-spots that atrract even more junk. That is where the 15 minutes get in handy, to sort out the hot-spots. I find it is worth my time to spend the 15 minutes in a day to do some cleaning.

And as someone said, I consider a clean workshop a hobby. I do play at it, but often the amount of work we have to finish is more important than anything else, but big jobs also finish, and then it is time to clean. And if it was neat before we started is is quite easy to get it back that way.

[Richard Jones]

" I enjoy the shop organization as much as the projects. " Ditto for me, great thought.

Easy solution for this. Just have some "simple" hand surgery so that cleaning up is the ONLY thing you can do......

Rich (with a new respect for physical disabilities) in VA