Cleaning and Organizing My Workshop

By Bobby Neal Winters

I recently finished a stretch in university administration. I did a nickel as chair of Chemistry among other things.  I learned a lot through my experience, most of which will never see print. (I don’t want anybody to worry.)

Department Chairs are to the university what sergeants are to the army.  The brass puts together the lofty plan, but the sergeants get er done. 

Most professors spend a career gathering things together that are useful to them.  They wanted them; they bought them--either with university or personal funds; they used them. They become precious to them.

And then they retire.

They imagine that their things would be useful to those who follow them.  And who knows, they might.  Whoever replaces them, might find these things useful, but they don’t. Why? Because they don’t know they have them.  They are wet behind the ears from graduate school; they are teaching full-time for the first time; they are trying to keep their heads above water.  They have no time--nor desire, really--to wade through the stuff that belonged to the person they are replacing to see if any of the items gathered over decades might be useful.

Having seen that and having dealt with the practical fallout of some of that, I am taking that experience into my personal life.

I’m reorganizing my workshop.

Reorganizing might be too strong a word, but let’s go with it.

I’ve had problems with my dust collector because I’ve not installed it correctly.  Because of this, sawdust has been collecting everywhere, but in particular in my main storage shelf.  

It is actually rather surprising that the sawdust is collecting there because it is a wire shelf and the sawdust can just fall through, but the sawdust is collecting on the individual items on the shelf.  So I am having to remove each and every item and suck the sawdust off it with a shopvac.

It’s quite satisfying actually.

You start with the top shelf because if you start at the bottom the dust from the top will fall down and undo what you’ve just done.

This ain’t my first rodeo.

In reorganizing, deep-cleaning, or any large, daunting task, you pick a small, easily identifiable area and start there and work your way out.  In a house, you pick a room and then pick a corner of that room. 

I’ve picked a corner and a shelf in that corner.  However, I was quickly reminded that you also need a staging area.  That is, you need a place to put the stuff that you are removing and reorganizing.

My workshop is my garage, and there is a freezer in the garage.  The top of the freezer--as it is directly adjacent to the shelf--is an ideal staging area to hold items temporarily while you suck the sawdust off of them, but it was full of parts of a project I was working on.  It should have been on my gluing table, but my gluing table was full of another project I was working on.

So--and pay attention here--I finished the project that was on my gluing table and removed it from the garage entirely.  It is now waiting to be given to a new home. I then moved the stuff from the freezer to the gluing table, and by virtue of that was able to get started on sucking the sawdust off the items on the shelf.

When we clean and organize, there is another aspect that is quite important, and we dare not leave it out: We throw away.

(As an aside here: start any reorganizing project, no matter how small, with an empty trash can. File this along with “He who seeks revenge should start out by digging two graves.”)

Yes, we take an item and examine it.  What the hell is it?  Do I know? If I don’t know what it is, am I ever likely to use it?  If it looks expensive or if there is a possibility it might be of sentimental value to my spouse, I show it to her. Otherwise I throw it away.

If I know what it is, but am not likely to use it, I--again taking value, monetary or sentimental, into account--toss it.

After having tossed, I now have more room.  I also have an updated mental inventory of my tools. (I have three Dremels. Three. Two corded and one cordless. Cool.)

Though I was concentrating on the shelf, at the same time, I was doing a little organizing here and a little organizing there in the rest of the shop.

I did this from about 11am yesterday until about 4:30pm. It was 90 degrees the entire time. I’m glad it’s not really hot here yet.

I still have the bottom two shelves to go. I hope to be able to throw away about half of what is left.

Life is good.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.