Tools- matched or mixed?

So in my portable tool bag I rely on the different sockets and screw drivers to easily grab the right tool quickly.

But in my tool box my rampant OCD takes over and everything is organized. Until I tear through all them and reorganize them later.

What does GRM do? All sets every where or mixed?

~Alex

Organized is the only way to go. Few things are more frustrating than not being able to find the right tool and a project getting stalled as a result.

Organized up the wazoo. After a summer in the body shop I learned the virtues of having a well organized toolbox. My dad, on the other hand, categorizes his toolbox. As in he has a drawer full of sockets, one full of wrenches, one full of screwdrivers, etc. The result of this is you dig for 10 minutes in the drawer to find the right size every time.

When my sets are organized I can grab the tool I need instantly. When the job is done, I can tell if I've gotten all the tools out of the car and back in the box.

At the jet shop, I used foam liners with cutouts for every tool in the boxes, and stenciled outlines for the big tools hanging on the wall. At home, I use rails in the boxes and tags on the shelves.

Drawer for screwdrivers, one for wrenches, one for pliers-like stuff and the big bottom for stuff that is large and hardly used.

As a person who is consciously dis-organized, I view organized people with a degree of suspicion. Kinda like religions, they are always trying to "Convert" you to their way of thinking with arguments that always rely on the "for your own good" foundation. Nope, those people are NOT to be trusted.

On the other hand, have you ever seen an atheist or disorganized person try to "Convert" anyone to their way of life? It don't happen! We are the live and let live crowd and pretty comfortable with our space. Besides, the organized crowd falls apart if you move an item; way too fragile of an existence for me!

I'm completely disorganized. I try to get organized, but apparently my brain doesn't function that way.

I make an effort, but over time, my tool box gets pretty disorganized. I take solace in the wisdom contained in the old saying "a tidy desk (toolbox, whatever) is a sure sign of a sick mind."

Way disorganized. But I at least bag my sockets by ratchet size and standard of measure.

I subdivide my vast giftedness for disorganization until it is manageable in scale, if not in scope.

I build tool kits. I have a box especially for trim carpentry, a bucket for plumbing, a bag for electrical, etc. Most of the stuff is just tossed in, but the containers are small enough to be manageable. I does mean I own a lot of duplicates, but I never waste time looking around for something.

Although, I CAN'T STAND disorganized sockets. In my rolling chests in the shop, I use the Craftsman plastic organizers that keep them all in order. In my portable kits, I use metal bars with little clips on them to keep them all in order in a line. In either case, I can easily see if something is missing at the end of a job, or find the next size up or down.

When working I am a slob. I use a rolling cart to throw my tools (and parts, etc) on in the middle of a job. When the cart is too cluttered, I stop and put everything away and start over. It works pretty well.

All you disorganized guys, try this trick:

if it is 7/16" paint it black if it is 1/2" paint it yellow if it is 9/16, paint it safety red. If it is a hammer, you should know what it looks like.

The rest is really just like the filler in a hot dog anyway.

SVreX wrote: I subdivide my vast giftedness for disorganization until it is manageable in scale, if not in scope. I build tool kits. I have a box especially for trim carpentry, a bucket for plumbing, a bag for electrical, etc. Most of the stuff is just tossed in, but the containers are small enough to be manageable. I does mean I own a lot of duplicates, but I never waste time looking around for something. Although, I CAN'T STAND disorganized sockets. In my rolling chests in the shop, I use the Craftsman plastic organizers that keep them all in order. In my portable kits, I use metal bars with little clips on them to keep them all in order in a line. In either case, I can easily see if something is missing at the end of a job, or find the next size up or down. When working I am a slob. I use a rolling cart to throw my tools (and parts, etc) on in the middle of a job. When the cart is too cluttered, I stop and put everything away and start over. It works pretty well.

that's exactly me.

when we are working i can tell my helper "go get the plumbing bag" or "go get the electrical box"

and in the garage i fill up the rolling cart with the bolts and tools, then when i cant find something in the big box i put everything away from the cart.

Duplication seems to work for me. I keep the sockets on rails, but I have a few sets. If the 14mm is missing, I have another in there. If I can't find the Socket wrench, just grab another one. This has the benefit of saving trips to the toolbox as well. When I am laying under the car (no mean feat with an MR2) I can usually grab what I need off the floor without having to make a trip back to the toolbox. Sure, you trip over things from time to time, but you always have a screwdriver at hand.

(are the organized guys in convulsions yet?)

My tools are in an area of 22' x 12'

thats all I can say.

^^^^ I'm only slightly better than that, as all of my hand tools (A meager selection at that, I did a dumb thing and sold off my big tool set a few years ago, in anticipation of moving cross country, and didn't want to haul it. The move never happened, and I am down to a small carry box) are in the trunk of my winter beater. Mostly inside the box, so I suppose that's good.

I think we are proving that "organization is a genetic mutation and not all that common. No wonder the insecurity thing

I think that beer is an effective treatment. Worth a try.

Despite how chaotic the rest of my house/life is, I am borderline neurotic about keeping my tools organized. There are times when I simply have to stop what I'm doing and put everything away. The worst is when friends are around and try to 'help' by putting things away. I kindly ask them not to - just put everything on the table next to the box. I once wasted 15 mintes (that I didn't have at the time) looking for a screwdriver that was 'put away' 6" from where I normally kept it. So yes - NOHOME's "fragile existence" comment hit close to home.

The tighter your working space, the more critical it becomes to keep things neat and organized. Of course, I say this with my garage currently a freakin' mess...

Organized, until I start using them, then chaos. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I keep my sockets organized.

Other things like wrenches have a drawer. The metric and SAE sizes are segregated to different sides of the drawer, but only rarely do I organize them more than that.

I have a pliers drawer that is chaos, but it is all pliers chaos. I have to admit that my screwdriver drawer has phillips to the left, flat blades to the right, and others like torx and those square ones , offset screwdrivers, to the back,

During a project all bets are off. I usually end up with every tool I;ve used in the floor or on my little HF tool cart. Until I can't find something and get mad, then clean everything up and start over with making a mess again.

All my stuff is organized. And every time I go for a tool I can find it. That is unless my dad has been in there. He doesn't like to put stuff away.

My garage is usually a bit of a wreck, but my topbox is always ready to provide me with exactly the tool I need at a glance. It's doubly cool on the road, as the meticulously cut foam keeps everything in place even after 12 hours of bouncing around in the back of a truck or in the trunk of a race car on a trailer. Also, I know at a glance if something is still out on the foor (or under the hood.)

I am a recent convert to toolbox organization. I love it. There is a real reduction in time it takes to complete a task and more importantly a drastic reduction in frustration now that I no longer have those "where is that 13mm combo wrench? I just saw it in this drawer 2 minutes ago" moments.

It started with some hansen socket organizers. Then the big cheap wrench organizer from HF came along and got me hooked.

Yes it takes up a whole drawer in my bottom box for 2 sets of wrenches so it is not a good use of space but I always know what tool is where at a glance. I keep the ratcheting gearwrenches on the right and the regular combos on the left. Metric in one drawer and SAE in another.

Now that I know where everything is I no longer lose tools during a job ( a big problem before). Also I find I don't need duplicate sets. I pared out 3 sets of 3/8" drive short metric sockets that were "necessary" before and havent needed them in 6 months.

Now that I am upgrading all my old craftsman stuff with Toptul I am hooked on the "module sets" that come in their own blow molded organizers.

After working in the aviation world for a while and seeing how meticulous they are with their tools, I attempted to do this myself. I had the plastic craftsman box with socket organizer drawers and now the harbor freight large red rolling chest (awesome!) and the drawers fit right in. My wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers, cutting tools, pliers, etc all goes up on pegboard on the back wall. This is great- you can see them and know right where to put them back.

I hate pegboard.

But I like plywood walls with nails in them accomplishing the same thing.

I've got a relatively large garage, but there are a lot of cars and project pieces in it. So I'm forced to be organized. About once a year, I do a big garage defrag and make everything a bit more dense to absorb the new parts that have arrived over the last year.

One wall is pegboard with all my sockets on rails - black rails for SAE and grey rails for metric. A couple of tool rolls are hung up there as well, one for metric wrenches and one for SAE. Various other high-traffic tools such as hammers, angle grinders, circular angle doodads and the like are also hung there.

In use, I have a tendency to collect the tools I'm using around me. Things tend to get more and more chaotic until I do a sweep through the garage and put everything away.

On the road is a different matter. When I'm at the track or at a race, when I need tools, I need them now. So I have a very organized tool box. In fact, there's a list of the tools that should be in the box so that when I pack for a trip, I know just what to bring. Those hanging tool rolls get rolled and tossed in. The sockets on rails get pulled off the wall and tossed in. The small four-drawer box that holds a selection of nuts/bolts/washers/cotterpins, a full collection of electrical connectors, a range of rivets and other "pieces I need to fix the car" gets pulled off the wall mount and tossed in the truck. I can pack for the track in about 10 minutes and know I have everything I need. My toolbox isn't big enough for foam cutouts and the lot, but I can quickly deploy everything and pack it up again - critical for when you're on a transit stage and you only have a few minutes to adjust ride height or fix a problem.

Visual aids. The workshop. The LS1-powered MGB was built in this spot. At the bottom left, you can see the benches behind the car - not much room for clutter. I'm getting pretty close to the point where I need to clean up here.

The tool load for road trips. There's a bucket full of fluids (in smaller bottles, not all mixed up!) as well as the spare parts box that measures about 12x9x6. The bag on the floor contains the tools that are kept in the car on a rally, usually those tools are in the box. You can't get these boxes anymore, it's a shame.

We went to a big event a year or two ago, and one of my coworkers brought the same toolbox. He's of the "shovel it all in and figure it out later" school, and I had a much easier time working on cars than he did!

I cannot stand looking for tools when I need them, want to make a stressful situation more so, throw in the missing tool scenario.

After seeing my father dig through a bucket of sockets looking for a tool I realized how ridiculous it is to be totally disorganized. You won't get any work done if you spend all day looking for the correct tool.

I'm not hyper organized but pegboard has transformed a wall into the garage into a tool wall. I only need to go into the rollaway for stuff that won't fit on the wall. Pegboard is also infinitely adjustable so with new tools you just reorganize and get them up on the wall.