I know why I can't keep the shop clean

Thread inspired me to go on what I called a "de-E36M3ing" yesterday after work.

Hugely satisfying, and I've tons more room now. Well, a little more room. I don't have stuff stacked on top and under one of the cars anymore?

In reply to SkinnyG:

Did I say anything negative about you.....nope.

Did I say anything negative about your hobbies....nope.

Did I say anything negative about your career....nope.

So I didn't invite you to do anything except maybe realize/recognize that you simply have more time for all these projects then most so be happy.

Gotta run to work,sun will be up soon here.

There's got to be a way to approach these sorts of overwhelming project loads like Dave Ramsey does debt. We need a project snowball plan. I'll hold seminars in the Grosh. Let me get a few projects done first so there's room.

I spent yesterday (other than an hour or two of sun watching) cleaning up in my shop. Actually, I was helping haul off junk from my Uncle's estate Sunday and grabbed 2 shelf units and a metal cabinet that i wanted to incorporate into my shop for more organized storage. Yesterday I pulled them off the truck and realized the only place I had to store them was to pull all the E36 M3 out and actually put them where I needed them, so that's what I did. Having real places to put stuff away should help me reduce the clutter a little.

Putting stuff away when I'm done with a job has always been a weakness for me. I think there are several things that contribute:
1. not having enough real storage (working on that)
2.having a covered secure shop means that leaving stuff out is safe
3.working my self to the point of collapse to get a vehicle drive-able and then not having the energy to put away
4.the fact that I'm never confident something is fixed until I've driven it a little, usually more than a test drive. I don't want to pull all the crap back out if I have to dig back into it. Also, I'm pretty sure it's bad luck to put the tools away before you're damn sure it's fixed. The gremlins hate that.

I'm working on #1, but the other 3 are more about learning to plan better and be a little more disciplined. I like the idea of serializing small projects Like SVRex is doing. I've been doing something similar but I need to step up my game.

EDIT: let me add - There is no better motivation for getting off your ass and getting cleaned up and organized than dealing with a relative's estate who was a hoarder. Sunday we hauled 4 towering longbed pickup loads of stuff to the dump out of 2 tiny sheds on my late uncle's property. Everything in there was useless crap - and even if it had been worth something back when, the water leaks, humidity, mold, and creatures had ruined it. We've hauled close to 15 truck loads of stuff off out of a single wide trailer and a couple sheds and it still looks like a superfund site. There's another trailer that was condemned years ago but is still full, and piles of broken crap and car-shaped junk all over the property. Every time I go out there I want to liquidate everything I own and go tiny house. We all joke about hoarding, but seriously, don't do this to the people that may survive you if you love them.

In reply to kevlarcorolla:

I didn't understand why my career was relevant to the topic at hand. It sounded like an under-handed comment. You and I go ~way~ back on this forum; it wasn't a response I was expecting.

kevlarcorolla wrote: In reply to SkinnyG: Did I say anything negative about you.....nope. Did I say anything negative about your hobbies....nope. Did I say anything negative about your career....nope. So I didn't invite you to do anything except maybe realize/recognize that you simply have more time for all these projects then most so be happy. Gotta run to work,sun will be up soon here.

To quote you: "At the risk of sounding like an ass," well you managed to. Drop it, stop being a jerk, and be nice to one another. I'm not even involved and your post seemed rude to me. You essentially told him "oh, your life is so much easier than mine, stop complaining."

ultraclyde wrote: EDIT: let me add - There is no better motivation for getting off your ass and getting cleaned up and organized than dealing with a relative's estate who was a hoarder. Sunday we hauled 4 towering longbed pickup loads of stuff to the dump out of 2 tiny sheds on my late uncle's property. Everything in there was useless crap - and even if it had been worth something back when, the water leaks, humidity, mold, and creatures had ruined it. We've hauled close to 15 truck loads of stuff off out of a single wide trailer and a couple sheds and it still looks like a superfund site. There's another trailer that was condemned years ago but is still full, and piles of broken crap and car-shaped junk all over the property. Every time I go out there I want to liquidate everything I own and go tiny house. We all joke about hoarding, but seriously, don't do this to the people that may survive you if you love them.

There's definitely something to be said for that. My mother is going through a bit of that over the past few months since her husband passed away. He didn't throw anything away and wasn't much for organization either. Her recycling bin gets filled to the brim every week with old papers from the 70's and 80's (they were married in 1996).

Anyone interested in computer software manuals from the early 90's? Yeah... didn't think so... into the bin they go. She is retired, so time is less of a problem for her.

Some day we're hoping she'll stumble across the title for his old Kawasaki H1. Although during one of our recent digging escapades, we stumbled across the original air-box/filter assembly along with an original service manual (the bike has not moved under it's own power since 1974).

But along these lines, I need to get my house in order... since if something were to happen to me, my mother would be left with even more giant piles of stuff to figure out and sort through. When I box up stuff for storing, I try to make sure I label it in some way so it looks like something more than a random box of parts.

SkinnyG wrote: In reply to kevlarcorolla: I didn't understand why my career was relevant to the topic at hand. It sounded like an under-handed comment. You and I go ~way~ back on this forum; it wasn't a response I was expecting.

Its all good Greg,yep WAY back to dorikaze forum days and my old ae86....kinda why I was surprised you read more into what I said then I actually said.

I shoulda used some smileys,I'm pretty universally thought of as a non shiny happy person so I have that going for me.

It was meant as kind of a tongue in cheek suck it up buttercup,in my defense if you worked approx. 180 days of the last 179 I'm confident you might come across as an ass at some point as well.