How much time do you guys spend ( lets say each week) on maintanance and organization of your tools? And do you work for yourself or work for a company?
I work for a company but also do smaller jobs for myself, but lets say that about 90% of my time is working for the company. It seems that come every Sunday, Im sitting there, spending 1-2 hours re-organizing my truck for the week, doing maintanance on some tool, etc. And I still have a pile of stuff in my shed that needs fixing, modifying, or something.
Seems like I spend more time on this stuff than the other guys I know. Of course, I am a little anal on the organization. I like to have everything I would ever need with me, and I can usually find what I need right away.
Thanxs,
m2akita
Replies
We do most of ours in the morning before we go to the jobs we have. If we are done early somewhere I will tell the guys to head back to the shop and clean our the trucks. Probably adds up to an hour or so a week total. And it varies. One guys truck usually looks like he got off last night an hour late and threw everything in it and another guys looks pretty neat and organized most of the time.
The guy with the mess has everything, he just has to look. The organized guy can't seem to re-stock his own truck and winds up running out of parts. My truck is usually a mess tile the job is over and then gets cleaned well. I guess I am in the middle. DanT
m2akita,
I know the struggle to stay (or dream of getting) organized you are talking about. Without a block of time I get into "10 minute fixes", which have their place for sure but don't approach the solution.
So I get behind - not really messed up, but something bugging me going unfixed but not time.
So long stretches just barely keeping up then spend a day still not getting everything like I want.
About 15 minutes a day.
Fz
I used to spend about half of every Sunday reorganizing and cleaning out the tool trailer; then I realized that I have a four-man crew who could do just a little bit every day and avoid the problem, so I stopped cleaning. If they don't keep it up, they can deal with their own mess.
I just make sure everything is in its proper place and keep track of how much hardware we have left from a current job. I have a toolbox on my truck that all my "personal" tools go in, and everyone knows to leave "my stuff" alone.Jason Pharez Construction
Framing Contractor
Tools get organized at the end of the day. The truck usually gets organized at the end of the job. Some Sundays i'll empty out the truck and have a good go through. I have a extended passenger van so every once in a while the carpet needs a good vacuuming.
I got lucky last winter, I install a shower in a warehouse so I was able to pull inside and cleaned the truck out inside instead of freezing.
I'll spend an hour in the shop and another on the van most weeks.
Now I need to mount a grinder on a workbench in the shop, launder a bunch of shop towels & rags, chop scrap wood into firewood, put a new cord on the 3x21 belt sander, build a jobsite work table, load framing tools (for a shed/dog run project--I don't do much framing).
I run out of time and energy before I run out of stuff to do.