Aid to failing memory

Here's a paraphrase of a hint that I saw in a post on HSM...

I have my machine screws neatly stored in drawers. When I buy 100 of some type I need (because that's cheaper than buying five at the local hardware), I can't fit the excess into the existing drawer. So the box of 100 gets stored in some location away from the go-to drawers. Predictably, the next time I look in the drawer for one of those screws, I forget the 100 tucked away in their box. (Sometimes, I even end up buying another box.)

The trick is to take a few out of the box, paint them some vivid color (those quick-drying paint pens work well) and stick them in the drawer as a reminder that there's more on the shelf.

If you have a space-limited workshop (who doesn't?) you know that things get stored where there is space for them, not necessarily in the most logical location. Generalizing this scheme of storing one or two color-coded samples with the main stash can help take some of the pain out of space-available-dictated-storage.

Not a bad tip! Though I don't buy hundreds at a time, one does end up with more nuts, bolts, screws that one will eventually need at a given time. And in my case, those fasteners are in more than a couple of locations. Time to reorganize - again. :)

Paint marking is good, that idea is a little quicker than mine. I record info on the smallest size of sticky note and put in the drawer. Those administrative geniuses restricted by 'the box' call it Kanban, copying the Japanese system we (Deming) taught them, then too wowed to assign a term in English, alienate a portion of intended workforce.
My drawer ID system is numerical, starting literally at #1, not by the contents, just cabinet by cabinet. The table of contents was handwritten way back when, now in Excel. Reorganizing is pouring one into a different position, switching numerals in Excel and re-sort A-Z. Bingo. I don't refer to the list often, the hardware is arranged by what it relates to. When it started, I pulled out all the drawers and filled them with what I had, shuffling them into order. By not filling every compartment, additional items are inserted physically and digitally.
Keep your sanity, don't google Kanban. Infinite layers of non-productive administrative types generating un-salable costs. Except for the companies selling it as a product (wtf!) or service.

ROFLMAO! I now know why I can't remember where I put it, too much Kanban in my noggin! wtf indeed!

Kanban or in the near western world's description pretty much amounts to queue limitation control and in my opinion is probably where the just in time low or non stockage delivery system got its start. Which can work great as long as everything functions according to the master plan, especially where there is no in house manufacturing This would be where the 3 bin system would come into play where 1 bin would be on the floor for manufacture the 2nd bin would be in the manufacture's shipping department while the 3rd would be the out for delivery to the end user.
there are some corporations who have perfected the system to the point of prediction when a given item will require replacing right down to the thought to be predictable habits of the end user
Toyota for example can just about predict how many parts for any given type of vehicle will need to be replaced due to traffic accidents in any given sales area how long said vehicle will be out of service from the time of the accident till the time the user is behind the steering wheel again. taking into account every conceivable best and worst case scenario.
For a small business owner / manufacture and particularly the job shops, the kanban system often is not the most optimum way to approach their solutions since they almost certainly never have the ability to have every conceivable item they will need in the system Also the need for randomly purchasing in small quantities drives their cost of doing business up. on the other hand buying 100 of an item that may or may not be needed again for quite some time, while they may have saved money initially and at times managed to actually reduce the total end cost of manufacture per each of the few special production items . They are now faced with a surplus inventory which must be cataloged stored or liquidated. Often liquidation by means of selling off the excess quantities of parts proves to further reduce the cost of manufacture, rather than maintain an inventory thus raising their Dollars per square foot of floor space per hour value significantly

Heck, if I used painted bolts as a reminder, the next time that I saw them I'd have forgotten why I painted them and would need another reminder to remind me of that. There are downsides to being experienced, which the unkind would call being ancient.

"Experienced", hmmm. My worst enemy is KNOWING I have something, my shop is not that big(on purpose) and there's just not that many places it can be. But the glaring point of the memory is me thinking "ah, this is the perfect place!" But that's all. Usually I don't find that spot again until I've given up and sometime later I'm looking for something else. Then my reaction is always wth was I thinking? This has been drastically cut down recently as I've been acquiring heavy duty drawered storage units as they seem to be the last thing to go at local garage sales. I now have enough room for especially fasteners to put a whole box in a drawer. I never cared about that until I became experienced :)

I find that a very large part of shop organization revolves around observing how your mind works and capitalizing or compensating for what that understanding implies.

My shop is very small so stuff gets stored where there is available room; very often that is not the most logical storage place. Long ago I discovered that if I put something in the first place that springs to (my) mind, when I next search for it, the first place to search that pops into my mind will likely be the same as the one that surfaced when I stored it.

It works for me but that's only because of the way my mind works. Everyone has his own mental quirks; you need to exploit them to avoid chaos.

Never reorganize your entire shop at once. Try to reorganize a certain aspect just before you're about to use that element extensively. The immediate use of the reorganized element will "imprint" its new location on your mind in the same way we develop muscle memory for oft-repeated tasks.

Accept the fact that all organization (shop, life, whatever) is evolutionary; it's impossible to work out a perfect solution a priori. Make your plan flexible. Your needs will change with interests, age, available resources.

All excellent points Marv. Especially flexibility and evolving. And in my case I've learned the hard way to not have anybody else involved with the reorganization.

My SO is an excellent partner for such projects, but her brain doesn't work like mine and so she will influence me to do something that will not be my first inclination so it doesn't work. As long as I stick to first inclination like you mention I don't struggle. And when I'm deep in some project the last thing I want is to get derailed and break the creative flow.

Quote:

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Accept the fact that all organization (shop, life, whatever) is evolutionary; it's impossible to work out a perfect solution a priori. Make your plan flexible. Your needs will change with interests, age, available resources.

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AKA, Entropy Adjustment Bureau...whose soul purpose is to correlate and dynamically adjust the e.u. to age function as close to an isolated system as possible. :p

Thanks! I'm hoping your next really good idea like this one will be to help me remember that "I just bought that at last week's garage sale and don't need two!"

''grandviewdoug'' sound like we may be neighbors, as in 'where's Waldo'? Of course, south of Brookside!

Well, close, since we're both in the U.S., but I'm actually a Southwest Florida and Northern New York snowbird. I'm appreciating already the number of interesting projects and tips on this forum!

Doug