In an attempt to bring some order to the chaos of my home office where I write software for a living, I spent an hour and a half in my one-car garage shop slapping together three MDF & hardboard desktop inclined bookcases. (I had just ordered 7 *more* computer books from Amazon and didn't know where to put them...) To use the tablesaw I had to move stuff piled on it to my router table and downdraft/assembly table. Then I had to move stuff off the router table to use it. Finally I did the glue ups on the router table and put them on the table saw because there was no room whatsoever on the downdraft/assembly table. Plus there was lots of stuff on the floor, including a half-black pumpkin SWMBO put in an out-of-the-way corner last halloween and both of us forgot about.
I like making things in the shop, and I hate throwing away things that might be useful someday, but dagnabbit the shop had become alsmost completely unworkable. Something had to change!
Last night I took a garbage can in the shop, put a tape from Earl Nightengale's "Lead the Field" series in the cassette player for motivation, and ruthlessly started going through stuff.
-- I THREW AWAY the tennis shoes I use when exercising on the stepper. Sure, the heels were worn out and the big toes stick out, but they were fine for use on the stepper. Why get my "good" tennis shoes sweaty? But hey, the shop needs the space, so now there's just the one pair of shoes over by the stepper, by the router table.
-- I went through many of the plastic see-though boxes on shelves in the shop, THROWING AWAY some things to make room for the more important things cluttering the table saw, router table, etc. That PVC plumbing "tee" with part of the lip cut out could have been used on some jig or project someday I'm sure, but out it went. So did some hardware from the sofa I disassembled for the wood. And I'm limiting myself to just ONE box of misc. electrical wire, as I'll probably never need more than 15 or so cords I cut off from dead toasters and the like.
-- I decided to limit myself to just four boxes of scrap wood and (sob!) went through my scrap and THREW AWAY the least desirable pieces.
-- I cut up and THREW AWAY the hardboard and pegboard pieces to make a second copy of a failed invention. That really hurt, but now I can use the disk sander without moving them somewhere.
Sure, my shop is useable again, but somehow I feel guilty....
-- Mark