Since I’ve started playing with the Glowie, my office has taken on the appearance of a woodworking shop (or a nest, depending on who you ask, but we won’t go there).
One of the things that drives me crazy is the need to keep just a couple of items on hand so I don’t have to keep running out to the garage when I need something. But many of those items have to be bought in larger quantities.
So I’m trying to reduce the “volume” of supplies that I keep in here, to make movement without tripping a little easier.
One of the things you need if you’re working with wood and acrylics is sandpaper. Unfortunately in a wide range of grits. And if you don’t want to keep eight packages of sandpaper next to the phone, you’ve got to come up with something.
Tah-Dah!
A Handy Dandy little Sandpaper Rack! Holds a couple of sheets either torn or folded into quarters, in eight different grits, or a fine sanding sponge…
Not terribly exciting, but extremely handy! (Gaining on it slowly.)
there comes a point when you realize that the ability to have convenient access to resources in order accommodate many ‘builder/tech/geek’ hobbies means you either have to compartmentalize into many rooms, or just have to be a really good desk archeologist (i.e. finding things under a mountainous pile. Darcheology? Deskeologist?). Unfortunately, I’m probably not good at either.
I feel your struggle, and I commend your ‘Useful Thing’ (SandyNappyHolder?)
Very exciting and highly useful! I also see it as a napkin holder in the kitchen. Bet you could come up with a whole range of matching FLW themed kitchen accessories.
There was a book out a few years ago dealing with a study at MIT about efficiency and neatness. They found that you’re more efficient and productive if you use piles vs putting everything into files and boxes.
Piles of stuff are self-managing in terms of importance - the most important and useful stuff tends to stay on top and less used stuff migrates down. Since you tend to work on projects relatively consistently (vs working on it and then stopping for a month), even when you’re working on multiple projects the stuff that pertains to your current projects tend to stay near the top.
When you finish a project or at self-imposed times, move the bottom of piles or the project’s stuff into “deep” storage - the organized files & boxes.
BTW, piles don’t necessarily have to be physical piles but can be aggregations of supplies, materials, etc that are relevant to the current projects.
this is really iffy science, though; the differences are small, and measuring “efficiency” for the average person is generally difficult. i tend to tell people to go with whatever lets them work with the least stress.
i’m one of those weird people with a very messy desk, but anally organized files. both file structure an inside of a file. styles, layers, everything named logically, everything organized.
Oooh! Same here exactly! My computer files are organized to a level that Tony Shaloub (Monk) would approve, with multiple redundancies.
Desktop - not so much. I tend to jump from project to project, and want the things I need at hand. (Very absent-minded professor, which makes for about four square inches of uncovered horizontal surface under normal conditions.)_
What I want to know specifically @dan,…Is your desktop always as neat as it is in the Hello Glowforge videos?
Please tell me that’s just for the vids. (My brain would completely cease to function at that level of neatness.)
i’m so anal about the files that when i open someone else’s InDesign files at work, one of the first things I do is delete all the duplicate color swatches. We have a brand palette, and for some reason when you copy and paste items between files, sometimes in InDesign when you copy an object that’s ModerateBlue from file A to file B, file B now has ModerateBlue 2. And then ModerateBlue 3. etcetera. I have to clean them up if I’m going to work in there. Too much scrolling otherwise.
Not to mention, once you clean up your piles you can’t find anything…I don’t k ow how many times after cleaning stuff up, things seem to disappear forever that before took seconds to find…
and then I can go home…
