An AIEL
Shop Tips Instructional

The worst mistake a shop foreman makes in the running
of a shop is allowing work space to become reduced

THE FOLLOWING MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED
WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR ©

  Topics

Preliminary

Do the sorting when you have the time
so you won't have to do the sorting
when you don't have the time.

We all do it; we drop items somewhere convenient because of various
reasons, and some stay there seemingly forever. Ultimately, clutter
reaches a point where it reduces workspace and begins to
interfere with our projects, or it blocks access to things
or areas that we need at a given moment.

Why is this?

How might this disorder be rectified?

  Before the Project

Film Cans Tobacco Cans Plastic Jars Boxes with Tops CD or DVD Cases Video Tape Cases Medicine Bottles Stackable Bins Parts Cabinets Cake or Cookie Tins

Blank Paper String Tags Sticky Notes Marker and Pen Cleaning Supplies File Cabinets (Legal) File Folders (Legal) Envelopes (Legal) Old Newspapers Vacuum Cleaner Curved-Jaw Haemostats Clear, Resealable Bags Peel & Stick Blank Labels Stationery Binder Clips

  Time Estimate:  Next, set aside the time period required to attack the problem. It might be a few hours or a few days. You will have to determine the time you might need based on the enormity of the clutter. However, it is rare that one can accurately estimate the actual time that will be needed because one does not usually know the total number of items, and the required effort to deal with each. Excepting small amounts of recent clutter, dealing with what has been there for some time will almost always take longer than expected. Plus, it's normal that cleaning will accompany the removal of long-term objects -- both the objects themselves and the space they had occupied. Therefore, after deciding upon the length of time you think will be needed, add 25%.

  A Bit at a Time?  Now, some of you may be thinking that decluttering could be done piecemeal during the regular work period. Unfortunately, interruptions caused by others working in the same area, and the hinderance likely to ensue by the decluttering process itself, will result in frustration for all affected. This means that the job will not be done properly, if at all. Even if you do slog through it to reach a fairly good conclusion, it will take longer than if the job were to be done as its own project versus doing it in concert with other projects. It is best to concentrate on the task of decluttering without pauses being introduced. This will result in a faster, more complete job -- and other projects always flow more smoothly when clutter is removed beforehand.

  Newspaper:  Once you have the suggested materials together and have allotted the time, begin by moving current projects aside to give yourself a task area. Spread newspaper over your sorting surface, which might be a cleared bench or the top of a large roadcase; preferably the case should be on casters so that is can be rolled to where it will be needed. The newspaper will make smaller parts more easily seen. Plus when cleaning up later, one will be able to dispose of any dirt left after the sorting process by folding the paper into a `V' and sliding that dirt right into compost or the garbage. In addition, paper will absorb stains made by anything coated in oil, meaning a cleaner surface underneath. (Such papers should be sent to a Hazardous Materials Depot.)

    For the smallest parts that might be camouflaged by the printing on the newspaper, you might consider utilising blank paper for sorting these. As an economic measure, use scrap paper for this purpose -- perhaps sheets with writing on one side but plain on the other. Dig through your recycle bin.

  Beginning the Work

  Discovery and Examination:  Take a clutter container from a workbench and empty it onto your newspaper to examine what was in it. Things revealed might include paperclips, pens, hardware odds & ends, small tools, coins, old batteries, notes associated with one project or another, etc. Perhaps one might find salvageable parts remaining after some equipment had been repaired or dismantled to be retired from service. Be vigilant to ensure no small items are missed. All manner of things will be discovered during this initial process -- maybe even some thought to be long used up or lost to the ages.

  Gathering Similar Items:  Classify what you uncover by placing similar objects near one another in little clusters on top of another bench or a second roadcase. Now empty another container and do the same. Once you fill the second bench and case spaces, start with piles that are largest and decide what to do with these objects. Regarding any hardware found, sub-sort each piece. A pair of curved-jaw haemostats work well for this. These light-weight pliers are used by medical people and hobbyists because they can hold on to small or thin objects easily. Leave the jaws closed while pushing things aside, then open them to seize the desired piece. Place each group of sorted items into an appropriate bin or parts drawer in your shop. (If you believe there to be a lot of small hardware around the shop, you may choose to wait until later, and then sort it all at once.)

    To facilitate this work, move the parts cabinet or bins to within arm's reach of your sorting area. Use sticky notes to temporarily label the drawers and bins until you know where the objects' final storage places will reside. In some cases, there will be more items than can fit into a given drawer or bin, and so they will have to be moved to larger containers. Temporary labels are easy to remove and apply elsewhere as items grow in number, and then they can be disposed of once a permanent label is affixed to each final storage container.

    If there are components belonging to a dismantled piece of equipment that has been waiting for a lengthy time to have work done to it, gather its parts and put them into a medicine bottle, a box, or a resealable bag. Label as to which piece of equipment it belongs. If there are many containers and you are unsure of a category name, or you plan to re-sort the items into more refined categories, place a temporary sticky-note label onto each. Now store these and the piece of equipment together in a place appointed for pending work. It is best if these parts could all be inside one box or road case so they remain together. Storing these unfinished repairs frees up a work surface for your current projects.

    For any instructions, manuals, service notes, and so on, place them aside to be later acted upon, filed, or sent to recycle.

  Storage Solutions

    Returning to individual, large clutter items, the biggest ones can be stored in boxes, but if you need stackability with less-flexible sides, use square or rectangular tins with snap-on covers as used for chocolates or biscuits.

    For more protection, tobacco cans or transparent one-litre, rectangular, plastic jars are the answer. Both have large diameter screw tops and are air tight. The latter are excellent because the contents are clearly visible, yet these jars are quite robust when it comes to handling shop abuse. In our work spaces they have taken the place of bags of hardware, or in some cases, the bags themselves are now stored in those jars. Bags don't pack well on shelves, but flat-sided jars will. Leaving the contents in bags still keeps non-alike parts separate, but bags of related parts can be stored together. Label each as you go; remember to use temporary labels for containers that may not yet be the permanent ones.

    For a solitary item with no current home, you could make a place for it, but lay it aside to see how many others might turn up as you wade through more containers and trays. This is one of the reasons decluttering should be done as a single project; leaving things aside until the next sorting session, which might be a week away, will simply create new clutter. Resolve it now! The idea is to find or make places for those things that have stolen your work spaces.

    Another reason for decluttering being done in a single session is that once you have evaluated everything, you will know the total quantities of each item. Thus, you can better pick the appropriate type and size of storage, along with the best-suited location for each group of items as you make new residences for all.

  Parts Bags:  What about a myriad of small parts that are different? Using a drawer for each (even the small-size drawers in a parts cabinet), would be wasteful. When there are fewer numbers of like parts, the solution is to put each group into its own small, resealable bag. Because these bags are able to be opened and then resealed, they are a better storage solution for later accessibility than bags that are stapled shut. Some use paper clips to seal bags, but these get lost easily.

    Use the locking type of clear plastic bags that hold the screws and brackets for furniture which must be assembled. These are available from electronic parts dealers or sellers of shipping supplies. Even some dollar stores carry them, although the quality is often not good enough to use for shop purposes. The cheap ones often cause frustration because they are difficult to open, or they tear easily. Spend a nickel more a bag; it's worth it.
We Sell Resealable Bags -- see Accessories for Service Personnel.

    Once this classifying is done and the pieces committed to storage, multiple bags can now reside in a single drawer since the part types will stay separated. Try to bundle together the bags with objects that are related to one another. A negative example would be pairing miscellaneous electronics parts in a drawer with components for a fresnel fixture. These would be better stored in separate drawers.

    Small, resealable bags are best for those very tiny parts that usually get sifted to the bottom of a bin of larger parts. In this case, put large objects into the bin as is, or place into suitable boxes or tins, but put the small pieces into bags which can then be stood together and upright at the front or back of the bin. If they tend to fall over, put all the bags into an open-topped box to serve as a holder. Then assign the box to your desired bin location. For just a few bags, use a stationery binder clip to hold them together; the clip being easily spotted amongst those larger parts.

  Labelling:  Another plus regarding these bags is that they take felt-tip marker ink well. Alternatively, one could use blank, peel & stick labels. These are useful to cover over existing bag labels or printing. If the large objects in the bin need details to accompany them, attach a string tag and print on it using a regular pen. If the tags get in the way, put them inside the bag. Inside documentation has an advantage in that trying later to remove stickers may be troublesome if they have been on too long. This is especially a problem with cheap, thin bags; usually the plastic will tear.

  Envelopes:  For groups of loose parts that are too big or too numerous for typical resealable bags, and you don't want to buy oversize bags, employ legal-size envelopes. Their enclosed sides will prevent loss of items down underneath the file folders in the cabinet. (This is especially likely should folders of the hanging style be chosen.) When an envelope is removed from the drawer to peruse what is stored within, the sides retain the contents, meaning losing no objects on the floor or them tumbling into inaccessible places.

  Flexible Items:  If there are parts such as trim pieces, gaskets, or other things that you don't want to get kinked, then bags, envelopes, or file folders amy not the best storage solution. Try winding these objects into cases for CDs, DVDs or video tapes. Their hard shells will protect the contents. A nice feature of such cases is that they snap closed, and they can be stood on end for easy filing.

    For longer items that cannot be rolled, try blister-pack containers used for roast chicken or sandwich assortments. Get ones that have thicker, less-flexible plastic, and that snap securely closed.

  Product Packaging:  Does some of your clutter consist of packaging from various purchases that no longer houses the product, but is being kept for its instructions, or to hold the product's accessories? These boxes and blister packs take up room. If they will not be needed in the future, reduce their space footprint by first removing and filing the accessories and paperwork. Then break down the boxes and packing materials for recycle, or keep them in storage for the day you sell the product. Flattened boxes take up far less room.

    For blister packs, carefully shave off the plastic and send it to recycle, or keep deeper ones for mixing glue. As mentioned above, place the backboards into a file for reference of the model and manufacturer, and for the instructions commonly printed thereon.

    Alternatively, cut out, photocopy or scan the significant information and file it, while sending the unwanted cardboard and packing materials to recycle. Larger accessories can be stored in smaller boxes or in drawers. Be sure to document what you store.

  Filing the Clutter

  Methods of Filing:  For notes, instruction manuals, and parts lists, use file folders as storage. You might even include small, bagged items, or flat, lightweight objects. Buy heavy-gauge folders; some can be hanging style if you wish, and you may want a variety of colours.

    Purchase one or more legal-size, medium-to-heavy gauge cabinets so that the total weight of shop items in them will not warp or buckle the drawers. Buying cheap, thin-metal cabinets for this purpose will only waste your money. Unless letter-size cabinets work completely for your purposes and/or available space, the legal ones are recommended because the extra width is more useful for shop storage reasons.

  File Tabs:  Group similar items into categories and ready them to be placed into your file cabinet. Realise that the design of non-hanging file folders allows their label tabs to be oriented to the left hand or right hand side by turning the folder inside out. Hanging folders make use of transparent, clip-in file tabs to hold their labels. Their edges are inserted into any pair of the slots arrayed along the inside top boundary of the folder. This permits a tab to be placed into any one of a variety of positions. It is suggested that coloured tabs not be used because the colours tend to impede the reading of the labels inside. Do colour separation by the colour of the folder itself, and use clear file tabs to hold labels.

  Tab Alignment:  Being able to choose the location of the tab is a good feature. You can align them along one side of the drawer to provide a visual cue that these represent a single category or section. As just suggested in the previous paragraph, employing a specific colour folder can also be used to clarify the limits of that category. For the next section in line, use a different colour folder, and have its tabs go along the opposite side of the drawer. Then change back to the other side for a third section. Continue alternating tab sides and folder colours for each category.

    Because the tabs on hanging folders have more than two possible positions, one could stagger them a bit while keeping mostly to one side or the other. This slight zig-zag arrangement of tabs would improve sight lines of the labels they hold. However, such an arrangement is not recommended, as will be seen farther on.

    An alternate technique that uses only hanging folders, would be to create a third section where the tabs are centred, and position this between each left and right section. This would give three possible alignments for your categories. If you are using legal-size folders, as was suggested, you would also have enough room to put tabs either side of centre, resulting in five possible alignments. However, this will make for an overly cluttered file system (especially if employing the slight zig-zag technique just explored), and the point of this article is to not have clutter. Therefore, remain with just three alignments at the most.

  Tab Alignment Issue:  Whichever alignment style is chosen, it will make for easy perusal of file labels; however, an issue will occur if an entirely new section should be added. This would mean that the tab alignment of the latest file section would match that of either the preceding or the following category. To lessen this possibility, complete the sorting first so that you will know all the category names required. Even if a section does later get added between two current ones, label alignment will at least remain consistent within each category, and different coloured folders will be the final delimiter, anyway. If you wish to be cautious, you could use sticky notes as temporary labels. This will allow changes to the layout of the folders and their tabs before you print permanent ones, as will be discussed next.

  Labelling:  Now begin to write the descriptions. For non-hanging folders, use a felt-tip marker with a fine point to print using large, clear letters. Hanging folders allow for a card-stock label to be placed inside each moveable tab. Use a fine-tipped pen to write on these due to their small size. If needed, put two of these tabs side by side to provide more description room. Be detailed with your labels so others will know exactly what is in a file. If the information is too much to fit on to a label, clip an inventory list to the inside back panel of the folder below a single label. Use a binder clip for this purpose as it holds better than a paper clip.

    An alternate labelling method is to use a dedicated label printer, or employ computer software and associated pages of peel & stick labels. This makes for a neat and very legible setup. One could also vary fonts so as to differentiate file categories -- even print in colour if your printer allows.

  Spoiling Your Nice Tab Alignment:  A final word regarding folder tabs: Some people make the mistake of putting the tab of every second folder on the opposite side. Or they continue to align the tabs of hanging folders slightly to one side of the preceding one until the edge of the drawer is reached, then tabs are staggered back the other way. This wide zig-zag pattern of tabs looks great and allows for easy reading of the labels, but will cause a problem every time a new file is placed between two folders. The nice, symmetrical right-left-right layout will be spoiled. It is suggested that you make tab alignment be the same within each category, not alternating it for each individual folder.

  Drawer Designations:  If possible, assign each drawer to a single purpose. If that is not wanted or not possible, add tall dividers to indicate individual categories, and make the printing larger for their labels. You might use a different-colour marker as a way to provide another visual cue regarding the organisation of a given drawer. Order the folders and envelopes by first letter, and finish up by placing a sign on the outside of each cabinet and drawer that denotes its function and/or contents.

    Should an extra drawer be available, omit file folders or containers for this space; instead, store the largest objects directly inside. If divisions are desired, consider sub-compartments made from open-top, cardboard boxes cut down to fit the height of the drawer. Or, buy commercial bins for the purpose.

  Old Drawers:  Should there be many items of one type, or some larger items, consider using old drawers as shelf bins. Look for an old dresser or desk, or for a retired refrigerator. The drawers from any of these make for excellent storage. In particular, fridge drawers are often transparent, thus their contents will be better realised.

    Sort the drawers by type and size. Once done, select a shelf or pigeonhole unit that will fit your now-bins. If the shelf vertical spacing is adjustable, make each shelf height a bit more than the height of the bin. This is to allow each bin to tip enough to view its contents. Even though you will be labelling each bin, one will still need to peruse what is inside so as to select the correct item. Do not put bins up high that will contain heavy items; there is too much potential for injury when pulling out a bin that is overhead, or even when doing so while standing on a ladder. Also, do not overload any one bin (especially the plastic ones), to a point that the bottom will drop out or plastic flexes or becomes split.

    Try to arrange each shelf or row of pigeonhole compartments to have bins that will store associated parts or objects. Label the bins, and also individual shelves or rows, so that each bin will be returned to its correct slot. Make labels large enough to be seen from a distance and from acute angles.

Left-Overs

    For larger items that are not serving an immediate, worthwhile intention, yet they are occupying space in a work area, or on a bench or other work surface, move them to shelves or put them into long-term storage.

    Then there is the case of a certain object being where it is simply because it has always been there. How did it come to be there? Likely at one time, it was put where it now resides for some purpose that is no longer relevant, or the purpose has moved and the item didn't. An example of the latter might be a vacuum cleaner and its accessories that are now some distance apart because at one point a better position was chosen for the vacuum, but its accessories were never moved.

    Study these orphaned items and decide upon locations where they would better suit their intended usage, or employ them for a new purpose. If any are now unnecessary, place them into storage or consider selling.

No Motivation to Declutter?

    If after reading all the preceding, you feel that you just can't get into even beginning, force yourself to do just one shelf, one drawer, one cupboard, or one closet. Yes, this goes against the suggestion given near the start of this article, but if decluttering is a major aversion to your way of thinking, this would at least be a start.

    Just emptying one drawer and replacing its contents with one or more of those metal or plastic divider units will at least gather the drawer items and divide them into categories -- each type in its own compartment. Doing so will remind you of what you have and where it is. This will save money by not buying duplicate items, and save you time by not looking for something which former storage place was long ago forgotten.

    Hopefully, items will be found that can be thrown out or recycled, or be placed with like items in another, larger location where all can be together. This is the time to get rid of spent batteries, non-working pens and markers, and broken parts that just can't be repaired or be used for some other purpose.

    While the drawer is out and before replacing anything, take the time to do minor repairs such as tightening hardware, replacing that missing screw, and cleaning/lubricating the tracks and rollers. If there is a bind point, realign the two parts, or sand one or both to be flat, or at least silicone lubricate the offending sections.

    Now restore the contents. Even if every item ends up back inside the same drawer, it will be organised and inventoried -- these alone are worthwhile endeavours. Doing this one task may spur you into doing another drawer, or taking on a larger space such as a closet.

    These and so many other items that just end up in a junk drawer rarely serve any useful purpose, so get rid of them, or place them with items that can become useful again. The reality is that there should really never be any such thing as a "junk drawer" -- especially when one realises that the junk drawer was actually created by all these items! Make a proper location for such things in the first place and there will never be a junk drawer that needs to be cleaned out.

All done?  Okay, step back to view how much room you have
acquired; see how open your work spaces have become;
notice the organisation that your labour has achieved!

So now that your shop has finally been decluttered, you might
come to think: "Ah-ha! I have room for new clutter!" A better
policy though, would be for you to assign a home for
each potential clutter item as it comes to be. Then
future declutter sessions never need happen.

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