Tool Organization: Woodworking vs. Mechanical Tools

I've found one of the easiest ways to organize your tools is to delineate them as woodworking or mechanical.

Woodworking tools include saws, drills, clamps, basically anything that is used to modify wood.

Mechanical tools include anything used to work on my car or truck or to fix plumbing or electrical issues around the house.

Naturally, the mechanical tools can be found and organized in my garage, and my woodworking tools are to be stored and accessed in my shed. This makes sense as it is nearby where they will be mostly used.

Although this idea sounds like common sense, it has taken me a few months to realize it's the best way to organize my tools.

On the next episode I will get more granular and provide actionable tool storage solutions for my mechanical tools in the workshop as well as my woodworking tools in the shed.

Thanks for listening and please send an email or DM me at ToolCrave with any questions or comments.

Transcript

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Hello, everyone. Thank you again for listening to the tool crave podcast. My name is Timothy Dahl. And today, I wanted to speak about tool organization. Something that I think we all, we all have a challenge with, or at least I definitely do. I'm kind of, as soon as I get kind of organized, I feel like I quickly within weeks, months, or actually, sometimes days, things kind of get all put back in wrong places. And I'm just, it's just something I'm kind of constantly I say fighting. But I'm trying to really kind of shift my mindset around that and not be fighting but but really have more organization in regards to where things obviously go. But just a bigger a different mindset with how I am using my tools as well as where I'm putting them back. And also see, the main thing is when I need a tool, knowing exactly where it's going to be. Or if somebody in my family needs a tool, I can point them exactly to where the tool is. And there's an understanding that as soon as they're done using it, they'll put it back. That's definitely easier said than done. But that's kind of the goal that I'm working towards and that our family is going to be working towards. So the first part of this tool organization, I guess I should get to make this into a series. Now that I think about it, which I didn't consider. But I think it's just such a big a big issue that it deserves more than just a little time here. So starting with my thoughts on why I wanted to make this episode was in regards to mechanical tools versus woodworking tools. And that's kind of how that's naturally played out at our house. And in my home and my workshop. So I essentially think for a lot of people, they are di wires in general, some of them are more DIY into cars, and to work on their vehicles into changing their own oil, the oil filters, doing mods to their vehicles, trucks, cars, whatever that is. And they don't do any woodworking they don't they don't touch that stuff, but they are very into their cars. And the conversely, some people they don't care about the cars at all, they take it to a mechanic, they don't really want to do anything with it, but they'll build furniture, they'll do these other things. they'll fix do home improvement projects, they'll do sorts of things on that side. But more and more now I think people are kind of shifting back and forth. You'll see that Lowe's and Home Depot and other retailers are they're all starting to you know, crossover a bit. On the car side, maybe not so much with home stuff but but Home Depot and Lowe's, they have a lot of mechanical tools. And a lot of that crosses over not only into working on vehicles, but in the trades. So there are you know impact wrenches and, and things that that again, the trades which would be mechanics, obviously, but plumbers, you know, people that use more than just woodworking tools. So you'll find a lot of that now at Home Depot. But I'm getting back to the delineation I've made between woodworking and mechanical tools. In our garage is where I used to keep all of my tools no matter what drills saws, just everything was all in the garage I tried to I have actually enough space for two different tool chests, which quickly I outgrew things got jumbled, and I ended up recently building a new shed in the back where I'm able to keep all the saws, mostly most of the drills, drill bits, just anything that has to do with woodworking, glues, clamps, all of that stuff is out there. And in the garage. Our lubricants are the impact wrenches, I have an impact driver out there is well socket wrenches, wrenches of all kinds pliers of all kinds, you know, any, if I'm doing any electrical work, it's typically around a vehicle recently set up some lights for my truck and didn't have to access any of the tools that I have outside. It's all in my garage. So basically, setting it up like that i is made it a lot easier for me instead of having to run back and forth having tools in different places. If I can set it up, you know where I generally know if it has to do with a vehicle, plumbing, electricity, electrical work, it's all in the garage in the home, and more home improvement projects, woodworking, crafting, craft building projects, maybe some light furniture building that's all outside or that's all in my shed. And fortunate because I have that space I can make that separation. So for me that's a really big deal that came along naturally that I've been figure maybe it's common sense, which really kind of is but maybe that can help somebody kind of think about a better way to organize their tools. Now, I'm still trying to get better at this and to kind of lean into organizing this a bit more I do have, I need to, you know, next process to kind of go through all of my tool chests, toolboxes, I have drawers literally drawers that are filled with just knickknacks, extra bolts, extra screws, things like that, that need to go in compartments that should go should be put away. And I also have random drawer of files, random drawers of tape of things like that, and kind of deciding where those should go if they're going to be more in the woodworking or it can be more in the home improvement side, I imagine a lot of this stuff will go into the home side because it's things that we'll be grabbing when we're in the home needing to work on the home. But you know, at the same time, there are definitely tools that just that work better outside that should be outside to take up more space. So I just wanted to really touch on that maybe that can help somebody else out there and we're gonna thinking about how they're organizing their tools and their workshop. If you don't have room for a shed be consider a different tool chest for mechanical tools versus the woodworking tools separating your garage garage in that way if you have room for two to work benches are two separate tool chests of being able to to switch between the two or have the tools you know separated that way. I have always traditionally kind of worked more with the trades tools with with the DeWalt and Milwaukee Makita is of the world and a lot of them have again traditionally been more towards construction towards building towards woodworking. And now they are all crossing over into outdoor power equipment into mechanical tools into you know, the hitting more of the trades. And I definitely see Milwaukee's always kind of they've been there, but they're growing even more in that way. And you know, a great example of that is that, you know I've got, I've got a wrench set. I really love their socket wrench set, it's got like the four squared sides and the sockets, they don't roll off your table, they don't roll off your workbench, it works great, it's three eighths, and that works. That works great with my three eights impact tool. And so having that all in one place, I can easily grab it get to work, I also haven't half inch that I also use with a cobalt actually have a cobalt, half inch impact that I use actually my half inch cobalt socket set. So that just happens to be cobalt, which is kind of odd cuts in the cobalt self hadn't have had it for for a long time. But um, anyway, yeah. So in regards to the brands, they all kind of love them kind of crossover. But you definitely have specific, like all my Craftsman wrenches I have All together now. And I need to again find a better way to keep each of these sets organized, I have multiples of each set. And part of it. Again, I have an opportunity to try out different sets, I acquire them, I'm kind of always looking for different ones. And I just need to get better at sharing them with friends and family and making sure that they have them because they you need to use them. And it's better if they have them, you know more than me to have multiple sets since then multiple things I need to make room for. There are definitely times when having different extensions, I found useful, especially in working on a vehicle. Sometimes you know that the fits not quite right with a certain socket size, and you need something was smaller walls, or you need a wrench handle that, that can fit in a tighter space, things like that. So, you know, I like to definitely have a couple different sets on hands just on hand just to be one in Canada's those those issues. But you know, just having more sets meaning to having more I have to store. So I hope that helps. I'm trying to think if there's anything else I'm missing here in regards to tool organization, between mechanical and woodworking. I think maybe the next step here is to kind of break down each side and kind of kind of talk about my journey as I go through my garage organization with the mechanical tools. And as I tackle, I'm organizing my shed tools, which are my woodworking tools. And it's a journey that I think that's a lot of fun that we all go through that again, I think the main goal is knowing exactly where things are. My dad has always been very organized. And he knew exactly where things were. He used inserts on all of his tool chests. And for me as a youngster growing up was great because I knew where things were, I could access them I could and knowing that you know how meticulous he was with with putting tools back, kind of ingrain that into me at an early age and so I knew like okay if I took this out of this spot out of the store had to put it right back Unfortunately that hasn't kind of carried on as an adult because I would say that I am definitely disorganized when it comes to those things. My wife would also definitely agree with that and know that it's kind of been on a bucket list for a long time now in regards to organizing, so I think she'll be pleased knowing that I'm speaking about this. I'm giving it thought I'm going to be more intentional now with every tool that comes in, maybe it's time for another tool to go out. I do not have an unlimited amount of space which is probably good because I would fill it up with with everything. So they kind of fought but I do I am fortunate to have some space so I'm not just stuck with a closet or something like that. So it's this is gonna be a fun process a fun journey. And I definitely look forward to sharing more of this I you know, follow Follow me on on tool crave on Instagram. That's where I share a lot of this stuff in stories. And in posts. If you have any questions, shoot me a DM there. You can always email me at Timothy at tool grave COMM And again, always appreciate you tuning in here. If there's anything any topics you want me to go over any tools I'm gonna look at, please just send me an email shoot me a DM and I will I will strive to get back to you on that. And next week, I will well this weekend, I'm actually headed back to Tucson to check in with the family to do a fantasy football draft, which it's time now so I don't know if any of you out there do fantasy football but um that's the world so my interviews are going at least this weekend. But I I do need to get my my new shed organized, get a door built on it. And through that process, I will be documenting, you know the organization. So I think this is going to be an ongoing kind of mini series on tool crib here. And I look forward to sharing more information as as I get further into it again, if you have any questions, please just shoot them off to me. And again, thanks for listening