In Praise of Clutter (anyone dare to post pix?)

Costco has a magazine called 'Connection' with an artice with the ***le above. They were hawking a book called 'The Hidden Benefits of Disorder'; 'people with a modi*** of messiness and disorder can indeed be more efficient, more creative and, in general, more effective than their highly organized counterparts'. 'An unproductive and frustrating obsession with neatness and order is a real problem in our society"; quotes by the author Freedman. "If a cluttered desk (garage) is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then, is an empty desk (garage)?", Albert Einstein. In a recent popular car mag someone joked that if you bumped into anything in the editors garage, a car would fall out of the rafters. Made me think of my garage; can you work in yours without a major shuffle of stored items? What are the traits of HAMB'rs? Anyone dare to post any garage pix?

 

I'd post pics if I had any...my shop is a perpetual disaster...it's amazing I get anything done, but don't forget, there's a fine line between genius and madness...

 

Dad's 70x70 that was packed to the rafters. He has recently made an effort to clear some of it out/straighten up. When this pic was taken there were 23 cars/trucks/tractors/sailboats in there along with a ton of other car parts.

 

Here is my shop. I can't seem to get it organized because I have too many projects on the go. This is an old picture and some of the cars have changed, but the shop remains the same. It is 2 cars wide and 2 deep. Pat.

 

Some of the projects have since been replaced to protect the innocent and untalented

 

I just cleaned mine up a little, but it will be back to normal (a complete mess) in no time. It seems to me that us hot rodders are natural packrats, so i think it goes hand in hand with our personalities that our shop will always be a disaster, but i bet most of you know where everything is in your shop.

 

My shops a mess most of the time. No apologies!

 

I've been cleaning mine for the last year!

 

hey flipper does the ladder make it easier to check your stock? my shop is a disaster as well i even found a 1961 harley golf cart in here once i think its still here..

 

...I have all my tools on the bench at the same time, always.....I can find anything I need in a split second and don't have to walk several paces to a cabinet or crib....walking back and forth offers too many distractions and cleaning up kills incentive.....

bgbdlinc

 

My shop and home is cluttered BUT I know where everything is accept what I'm looking for !!

 

the scary part is he is telling the truth.I have described a part to him before, he says hold on and goes head first into who knows were looking for it. He seems to always find it!!

 

Here is mine

 

Allways keep your work space neat and orderly.

 

I'm finding things lately I don't even remember buying. It just so happens to be the things that I carefully wrapped or organized and tried to put in a place where I could easily find them that I forget the most. I'm too young to get this forgetful.

 

Can't say I'm the tidiest guy on the planet , not the messiest either ...somewhere in between...closer to the latter probably. What I've learned over the years though is that tidying up is the****utic and you can't **** anything up when you're just putting stuff away.....so, when I'm hungover ( or worse still blotto*), sleep deprived , spun out or just plain starved of a useful idea but I can't stay out of the shed I try to clean-up. Then when I have one of those holy moments when inspiration , motivation and organisation combine I can actually do something in a clear space and make as much mess as I like.......

*When I used to paint a lot of stuff I'd seem to have some attachment to going out to the workshop "just to see how it looks " when I'd been out having a few , or more........."hmmm I'll just pull this mask off"...."oops".............to many times I ****ed things up like that....once I knocked a dish of old thinners over a car , pissed .......two days work

 

Mine goes from showplace to comlete mess in the space of an hour or two. When I'm working on a project NOTHING gets put back in its place.
If I know I'm having visitors I'll take a day to clean it up nicely.

 

Is that the Johnson and Shipley lakester I see there? Man I wish I owned that thing!

 

My camera is on my desk somewhere......

 

You asked and you're gettin' them .

Here's a shop tour .

Better walk sideways or you'll knock into something .

My other building isn't this bad, but it's getting there .

Oh, this is from 2 years or so ago. It's worse now .

The scary part of this entire thing is that I know exactly what I have and know where it is. Folks walk in and can't believe I can just walk and put my hands on something they ask about.

If I have one of something it's a keeper. Two of something, the second is a spare (ya' always need spare parts). If I have three, then it's probably for sale!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I've been cleaning mine for the last 30 years! My computer room and garages are a disaster and it makes my wife insane. She thrives on a place for everything and everything in it's place. I, on the other hand, thrive on chaos. I try to keep it organized but just doesn't seem to last more than a day or two. Everyday is like my own little treasure hunt, you never know what will turn up while looking for something else.

 

....such a cool post:...like has been said before, I think most of us hot rodders are packrats, just that some are more organized than others. As the saying goes "It's better to have something you don't need, than to need something you don't have"
...I have storage buildings that are packed to the ceilings but I know where everything is,...it just mite take awhile to dig any item out!
...my actual shop/work area is small, only 20x26 and somehow 14or15 engines/trans have migrated into that same area!
...I did give my shop area a good sorting out before my latest project went in; that really helps mentally and physically to get goin on a new project. I feel better about my shop now, ...now I'm gonna sell off some of those un-needed engines/trans.!!

 

I like to think of mine as "organized clutter". All I really need is double the space and I think I'd be in good shape. Of course when the weather isn't threatening, we move the vehicles outside, then it seems like we have LOTS of room.

 

THis is really a great thread... Really! Having "adult ADD (attention deficit disorder" I find that not only is my mind cluttered but so is everything else. My house is cluttered (not dirty but full of too much stuff) my desk is cluttered with papers and projects that I am working on but as soon as I file them I can't find them... Lastly... My garage is a complete scene of disarray. I had cleaned before winter came and actually cleared a descent space for my self to work on small projects, and for the first time in two years I could see the top of my work bench!

Well that's changed... I built my headers, and the holidays have come and gone not to mention a few more "small" projects and TADA!!! UTTER CLUTTER!

But you know what? I don't feel that a messy desk/workspace is a sign of a cluttered mind.

I look at a cluttered work space as a sign of a mind that is constantly working, so much in fact that there is just not enough time in the day to complete the work on thing at a time so you have to work on 100 things at a time!

 

Great thread, and now I don't feel quite so guilty about sitting here on the laptop instead of going out and swamping out the garage. It qualifies as a disaster area at the moment. One car garage built in the 30s with way too much stuff crammed inside.

 

I was going to go out and take pictures of my shop, but I am afraid to open the door, something might fall out that I won't be able to shove back in there.

Have to admit, that sounded real impressive eh? Really, my shop is pretty organized. Could always use a good cleaning, but thats a different story. I have a storage garage and its collecting a bit of junk these days. I used to have a bunch of stuff, but then about 3 times in a row I spent a day or more looking for something I knew I'd bought for a specific project but couldn't find it! It was then that I desided that if I couldn't find something I'd specificly bought for a project, it was time to get rid of stuff. Figured if I couldn't find something I needed, why was I keeping all this **** I didn't need.

The house is the same way, we have lived here for 5 years. We still have stuff in boxes in the ba*****t we haven't opened since we moved it there. We are in the process of clearing it all out. If we haven't needed it in 5 years, we must not need it at all. Does that mean I'm getting old? Gene

 

I've got clutter in 2 shops, in my barn, and outside around my barn.

 

my whole life is a constant battle between being a neat freak and being a pack rat. it's not easy being both at once!

 

My shop is pretty messy too; I didn't realise how bad it was till I was backing my '46 out one day and a neighborhood kid was watching me. When i got out to close the shop door he asked me..."What happened in there?" I have a friend that was building sandrails and he had several of each tool, he'd just grab a "fresh" one off the toolboard on the wall when he needed one; when they were all off the wall he'd sweep all the tools into a pile and sort them all back out. I saw him take a broom handle once and stir a pile of hand tools on the floor till he turned up the right size wrench!!!!

 

Someone once told me that when it's easier to go and buy something you aready have, rather than find it in your garage it's time to clean up.
I hope to clean up on New Years day. it should last until Valentines day, if I am lucky.