How do you clean up or organize your workbench areas?

[cdev]

I am trying to develop good habits in this respect, but its hard because I am the kind of guy who likes to have things which connect to projects I'm working on where I can see them, and I have a lot of things like that.

One thing that has worked for me is a setting on one of my computers where it will speak the time every 15 minutes. Then, whenever the voice speaks, I have to get back to cleaning from whatever I got sidetracked into.

When I do this, I always get the house cleaned quickly. 

[Brumby]

Cleaning up usually means putting things away that you are using.

The sedimentary organisational method is one that seems to regularly find its way onto my work area.  Finding something is usually a function of remembering how long ago it was used and then excavating to that level.

I have a monitor at the rear - and I use that as an indication of the time to rationalise the work area.  I'm fine until anything obscures even 2 or 3 pixels of my monitor - a height of 9.5cm - then I have to act.

[basinstreetdesign]

Hi.  This is the philosophy I have used for many years.

I have been working on an electronic workbench for about 40 years now, and it is my observation that on the typical 3 x 8 foot area of the bench the active area where the magic happens comes down to about 1 square foot in the middle.

This is acceptable as long as the other 23 ft^2 are occupied by stuff that legitimately should be there.  This includes equipment actually used for the project (laptop, scope, hand tools in use, etc), equipment unused for the current project but which doesn't steal space from equipment that has a higher priority, tools that normally live somewhere else but are regularly used for the project at hand and parts/supplies that also have a usual and customary home on the bench (such as hookup wire)

As I said, stuff with a legitimate reason for staying on the bench includes small tools used often while working.  As soon as some pair of pliers may not be used in the next half hour it should go back where it lives.

I purge my bench of unneeded stuff regularly, about once an hour to keep the clutter down to a dull roar.  I got into this habit after a few years in my early career when I REALLY got fed up with always searching for some errant tool or other thing after forgetting where I had misplaced it two hours prior.  I just decided that I wasn't going to be spending 33% of my time anymore looking for some small thing that I needed to get on with doing something useful.  Now, if I want a certain screwdriver, I know exactly where to find it.

So everything I have has a place to live and gets put there when not needed.

This can be really tough to arrange especially if you have a lot of parts/handtools/crap that has never been assigned a place to live.  And should give birth to a special project or two to create places for that - drawers/shelves/etc.

[GreyWoolfe]

I use half of my 8' workbench to repair company equipment.  I bring my tool kit from the company van so all tools go right back in when done.  That side of the bench stays fairly clean.  The other side, I try to keep clean.  When I am done playing, even if I am not finished what I am working on, I put all my tools away.  I have a good sized tool chest sitting on a furniture dolly to make it easier to move around and I keep everything organized in groups in the drawers so I know that everything has made it back into place.  I also make sure no one else goes into it.  if anyone needs a tool for around the house, there is the rolling chest in the garage.

Hurricane Irma sure made a mess out of my office.  We were initially projected to be hit with a Cat 4 rating.  What I didn't take when we evacuated, I wrapped up all the T&M and ham radio gear in contractor bags and duct taped up.  I am about 50% back towards what goes for normal here.  Shockingly, I have also discovered that I have waaaaaay too much stuff.  I hope all other members that were affected by Irma are doing fine.

[lordvader88]

wire management is a hassle...or some humans just don't like knots and tangles, wiggly wogglgies

like how people like solid color walls, cut grass, flat square walls, floors, etc

[Smokey]

schedule yearly cleanup days.  Supplement with "I don't have any room left to do anything" shuffle days and you should be fine.

[Brumby]

Ahhhh!   Just noticed a box nearly encroaching on some pixels on my monitor...!

Moved it.  Disaster avoided.


Still feeling a bit queasy ... I actually put it away.   

[cdev]

I like your system, but not for the right reasons.. My monitor is a good six or seven inches above my desk surface.


 

[Brumby]

There are a couple of factors that have defined the monitor position and they aren't really changeable unless I completely re-vamp the work bench.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

So, dealing with the same issues I have learend a few things over the years:
This list mainly deals with the constant-cleaning, not full on yearly-stock-cleaning. However, the two go hand in hand: If you are more organized on a daily basis, you will also need less time to sort out all the things.

• Don't try and be too clean - if you are prototyping, you will have a lot of crap laying around. Triyng to always clean stuff up will cost you more time than you save by having a clean desk.
• Instead of just trying to clean always, try to get into a habbit of doing quick cleanups often. This is one of the most important things - getting this to be a habbit. If you do it often, it will also happen faster. Use dead-time for this - time that is too short to do anything usefull anyways. Got 5 minutes before lunch? Use it to quickly put back up those banana cables you don't need right now. You don't need to clean up the entire desk - but if you just use those five minutes, you have a bit cleaner a desk and you made use of those minutes you would otherwise just sit around not doing anything usefull anyways
• If possible, have a big desk (or multiple ones) and keep seperate stations for seperate takes. A place where you only do computer and paper work. A place where you can leave projects/prototypes laying around without them being in the way of your computer. A place where you can perhaps solder. One of the biggest sources of mess on my desk was because I was working on a prototype, but perhaps waiting for a part in the mail. Ofcourse it would have been silly to spend half an hour sorting the dozens of cables and tools and boxes of parts just to go through the entire process again a few hourse later, so what do you do? You push it all to the side so you can work on that report you still have to do. Repeat this a few times and you have a pile of garbage on your desk, and you are getting annoyed because you can't find a good place for your mouse.
• Make stuff easy to clean. If you have to get up, walk to a drawer, open the drawer, look for the right place, open the little box, put the device in, etc... Every time you want to tidy something back, you are going to be much less inclined to do so when you are working. I have some trolly things from Ikea (the RÅSKOG model) on top of which I can just put a bunch of boxes while working on a project. This way I can have a close-by storage location. I go to my parts storage, and just get everything I think I might need - the entire drawer of my little parts boxes. Then I can put parts back right in their drawers when I don't need them anymore, and only when I am done with the project I roll my trolly thing back to the storage and spend half an hour to put all the drawers back in the right place. Same with tools.
• With regards to parts, it's ok to have a "to be sorted" box. Just schedule a daily/weekly monent where you sort it out.
• Finaly: Throw crap away. There is no point in saving any 1/4 W 1% resistors. Once you have taken it out of that parts bin, it will never go back. They are just not worth the cost. To give you a perspective: Most plastic bb's used by airsofters, who use up hundreds to thousands of these on a single event, cost more than that resistor. And they littearlly spend their day shooting them at eachother, never to be seen again.

[RoGeorge]

Most of the electronics home labs looks like hoarder's room. The older this hobby is, the more hoarder's look it gets. Not exactly hoarding, but messy enough to look exactly like hoarding for any non electronics hobbyists.

Each one need to find their own equilibrium, some are on the OCD side, some are on the ADHD side. None of the extremes are good, so go with the Force! 

[Rbastler]

When Im not repairing or building something, I keep a clean bench. I have multiple once, but I only work on one, the others are for storage and testing. If Im in the middle of something, it sometimes looks really messy, depending on what Im doing and how big the problem is. That then lasts until its finished.

[cdev]

Hey, I figured out a system, I think! 

Small cardboard boxes, with one breadboard in each of them with these dip socket like plugs (which I have a bunch of already) on the sides for the interconnects between these boxes and test equipment, my computers, and power. The dip sockets have flanges that are big enough to let me just tape them into the hole in the side of the box with heavy duty scotch tape and maybe put a cable tie around that. Once I do that they aren't going anywhere.
 
I've been trying to save nicer small cardboard boxes for a while so I have enough of them to do this for all my current projects.
Plus the whole box is one big label. 

[cdev]

Wow, its good to hear you made it through that safely! Stuff is always replaceable, compared to family.

just be careful for your health.

Quote from: GreyWoolfe on Yesterday at 07:55:39

Hurricane Irma sure made a mess out of my office.  We were initially projected to be hit with a Cat 4 rating.  What I didn't take when we evacuated, I wrapped up all the T&M and ham radio gear in contractor bags and duct taped up.  I am about 50% back towards what goes for normal here.  Shockingly, I have also discovered that I have waaaaaay too much stuff.  I hope all other members that were affected by Irma are doing fine.

[bd139]

My wife tells me to clean it up when it annoys her.  Then I clean it up. That's how it stays organised

[GreyWoolfe]

Wow, its good to hear you made it through that safely! Stuff is always replaceable, compared to family.

just be careful for your health.

Quote from: GreyWoolfe on Yesterday at 07:55:39

Hurricane Irma sure made a mess out of my office.  We were initially projected to be hit with a Cat 4 rating.  What I didn't take when we evacuated, I wrapped up all the T&M and ham radio gear in contractor bags and duct taped up.  I am about 50% back towards what goes for normal here.  Shockingly, I have also discovered that I have waaaaaay too much stuff.  I hope all other members that were affected by Irma are doing fine.

Thanks for the kind words, cdev, we were very fortunate.  The only damage was a small dent in one of the front gutters.  Some tree trash, not too bad as Matthew did a good job of clearing possible deadfall.  Lots of leaf litter to clean, get the grass cut and get all the outside crap out of the shed and garage.  Hopefully, we will be done by EOD tomorrow.  I am trying to be careful, but SWMBO is working me.  I might want to be a bit wary, she is the sole beneficiary of the insurances policies!!

[eugenenine]

I don't have a bench so it makes cleaning it up easy

[bjcuizon]

I just practice a habbit of keeping/putting back all unused materials.
I remember someone who said this to me once, "A place for everything, and everything in its place."

[eugenenine]

You make a plan and keep to it.  Make sure you have a place for everything.  I have various tool boxes/bags/fishing tackle storage that I use.  Each one is dedicated to a category.  For example one of the soft sided zippered tool bags has all the small hand tools, from 4-5" pliers and cutters to precision screwdrivers.  A big fishing tacklebox with multiple storage boxes has small mechanical parts like standoffs, connectors, wire ties, heat shrink, etc.
Each one is listed on a spreadsheet with its purpose.  Before I buy new supplies or tools I look at that sheet and think about where it will go and will only buy if it will fit in its storage place.
I can make exceptions, like the new soldering station, I wasn't going to fit in the old red tool box the old radio shack was stuffed in but I bought it and added to my project todo's to make a place for it.  It took about 6 months of planning and drawing to make the soldering box that way i wanted it but it came together and fits in my system now.  There are places in it for solder, flux, tools, etc so when I'm done soldering all those tools and supplies go back in their place.

[ChrisLX200]

I envy those that have the space - an 8ft bench with surrounding storage is a luxury I simply don't have. I set aside a 4ft bench for electronics within my workshop (garage) which also contains mostly machine tools. I use every square inch and only keep instruments that I actually use, even so they take up a lot of shelf space and I can't spare any for more stuff that won't get used from one month to the next. Parts storage has to be strictly organised and labeled otherwise I would spend longer searching out stuff than using them. I can't keep everything I need right at the bench so some things have to be stored in overhead cupboards and under other benches, stuff from those remote cupboards I have to put back immediately I finish with them or I'll be swamped. The PC I use I specifically built to sit on a shelf below the bench, it uses a compact HTPC case so it can fit the shelf which has a polythene sheet in front to keep dust out (from the machine tools etc.). I still need to make a slide-out drawer for my keyboard but it's nevertheless surprising what you can fit into just an area 4ft wide...

[cdev]

The soldering stuff is what I am working on right now and although my soldering iron doesn't really lend itself to being in any case I have now, I do have a wooden box thats not currently used that I think I am going to use for my soldering iron, hot air gun, etc. Thank you, these are good tips.




Quote from: eugenenine on Yesterday at 20:01:20

You make a plan and keep to it.  Make sure you have a place for everything.  I have various tool boxes/bags/fishing tackle storage that I use.  Each one is dedicated to a category.  For example one of the soft sided zippered tool bags has all the small hand tools, from 4-5" pliers and cutters to precision screwdrivers.  A big fishing tacklebox with multiple storage boxes has small mechanical parts like standoffs, connectors, wire ties, heat shrink, etc.
Each one is listed on a spreadsheet with its purpose.  Before I buy new supplies or tools I look at that sheet and think about where it will go and will only buy if it will fit in its storage place.

I can make exceptions, like the new soldering station, I wasn't going to fit in the old red tool box the old radio shack was stuffed in but I bought it and added to my project todo's to make a place for it.  It took about 6 months of planning and drawing to make the soldering box that way i wanted it but it came together and fits in my system now.  There are places in it for solder, flux, tools, etc so when I'm done soldering all those tools and supplies go back in their place.

[cdev]

My God, looking at all the amount of usage you are getting out of that space, that is really impressive. Like you I currently don't have a lot of space at all right now. I will be very happy if I can do what you've done there. That kind of layout, with almost everything within a few feet is kind of my goal. If I don't use it it cant be taking up precious space.



Quote from: ChrisLX200 on Yesterday at 20:16:27

I envy those that have the space - an 8ft bench with surrounding storage is a luxury I simply don't have. I set aside a 4ft bench for electronics within my workshop (garage) which also contains mostly machine tools. I use every square inch and only keep instruments that I actually use, even so they take up a lot of shelf space and I can't spare any for more stuff that won't get used from one month to the next. Parts storage has to be strictly organised and labeled otherwise I would spend longer searching out stuff than using them. I can't keep everything I need right at the bench so some things have to be stored in overhead cupboards and under other benches, stuff from those remote cupboards I have to put back immediately I finish with them or I'll be swamped. The PC I use I specifically built to sit on a shelf below the bench, it uses a compact HTPC case so it can fit the shelf which has a polythene sheet in front to keep dust out (from the machine tools etc.). I still need to make a slide-out drawer for my keyboard but it's nevertheless surprising what you can fit into just an area 4ft wide...

[bd139]

If it's any consolation for those space constrained, my "permanent" bench is on the top of a single small 2x2 Ikea Kallax unit in the living room corner. This contains two drawers for my parts and tools and the other two are kids toys. This isn't working well so I tend to just grab what I need and set it up on the dining table when I need it. I've got TEA so there's shit everywhere in the house, cupboard, hall, on top of kitchen units in boxes, in the boot of the car etc.

Typical dining table on 80's night 



I've learned that a deep bench is more important than a wide one, especially with older kit.

[mc172]

My wife tells me to clean it up when it annoys her.  Then I clean it up. That's how it stays organised

Exactly this. 

[eugenenine]

The soldering stuff is what I am working on right now and although my soldering iron doesn't really lend itself to being in any case I have now, I do have a wooden box thats not currently used that I think I am going to use for my soldering iron, hot air gun, etc. Thank you, these are good tips.

I'm almost done with mine so its not quite ready for the show your bench thread.  I built the bottom months ago by gluing laminate to plywood then routering out small sections to keep the stuff from sliding around then recently decided to make it the same dimensions as my reloading stand to make it sit on top.

Hinges are on order and I need to glue laminate on the work area still.