A most annoying workshop search

[dennis thompson]

So I spent 20 minutes looking for something in my shop and finally when I found it , I forgot why I was looking for it!:)

[Marshall Harrison]

Old age catching up to you? Happens to the best of us.

[Lee Schierer]

It only gets worse...:rolleyes: Not that it has ever happened to me.

[Bryan Lisowski]

After searching that is when you end up ordering a new one and then finding the original.

[Al Launier]

I keep on forgetting just to convince my wife that I can't make her something unless I need to get that special tool. She might linger a while, but usually relents.

[Robert Engel]

How about you order the wrong dye stain, so you go to the Woodcraft store to get the right one, and when you get back, open the bottle and realize you replaced the wrong one with another wrong one!! So now you have $30 worth of stain you probably will never use.......

Getting old can be expensive.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Duplicates......

Got a bunch...yeah...most are because I just gave up looking for the one(s) I already had.


I'm just tickled pink though to see I'm not alone in this! We should start a club!

[Mark Walden]

Here is one of my favorites, I will be looking for something for a project or ?? . Then I will find something else and go OH COOL I remember this, and start playing with the new thing forgetting all about what I was doing. 2 days later I start to put the shop back together and realize that I was looking for something that I never did find. So now I am back to square one looking for that thing again.
It just never ends.

[Dave Zellers]

I don't know- it's not all that bad really. It's like being 3 again but now you're allowed to have a shop full of dangerous tools.

I'm reaching the point where when I start looking for something, I think I should jot down what I'm looking for.

Not really, but when I begin my search, I do make a point of saying it in my head. "I'm looking for my bevel square" It does help. In the middle of a project I've got a dozen things in my head at any one time. This forgetfulness is annoying and didn't happen 20 years ago, but I just shrug it off and there are techniques that help.

I shrug it off because 20 years ago I did spend at least 15 minutes looking for my glasses, which were new for me at the time, and then found them right where I left them- on the top of my head.

[Dave Lehnert]

I needed a special size drill bit for a project I was working on. Pulled my bit set out and the only bit missing was the one I needed.
Looked and looked but no luck. Had to close up the shop and drive to get a new one.
Back at my shop, with new drill bit in hand, I walked over to my drill press and guess what was already in the drill chuck?

[Bill Orbine]

Maybe you forgot that you changed your mind while you was looking for whatever it is you was looking for.

[Jim Becker]

The next phase is you forget what you were looking for AND why before you're half-way done with the search... :) :D

[Stan Calow]

I keep a chalkboard in the shop on which I write the things that I am missing and looking for so I can remember. I cross them off if I find them. Sometimes the same thing shows up again, usually my Starrett square and my digital calipers. I will be needing a bigger chalkboard soon.

[Frank Pratt]

At least you remembered what you were looking for long enough to actually find it.

[Simon MacGowen]

This is a natural sign of aging. At least you did find something!:D

9/10 woodworkers who are affluent I know are hoarders. They have too many tools to keep track of. I look at them as a warning and try (with some good success) to keep my tool inventory to what are essential and to what I will use in the foreseeable future. I sell my unused or little used machines or tools once every few years. It really feels good when you know you have new room for new tools...I mean toys. Try it!

I also buy tools on the higher end so resale is easy and quick. Festool stuff for example. I got three Pro5 and sold all my other Rotex, ETS sanders...the sale paid for all the new PRO90s with some money left for a short track. Bosch goes out the door quick too.

Simon

[Doug Garson]

Look on the plus side. Often when I am working the back yard I'll head to the garage to get something, and you guessed it, forget what I went to the garage for and then walk back to the back yard only to realize what I went for. Adds to my step count for the day.

[Marshall Harrison]

What bothers me is looking for something then finding something that I didn't even know I had. I guess I need to buy bigger more memorable tools.

[Bill Orbine]

What bothers me is looking for something then finding something that I didn't even know I had. I guess I need to buy bigger more memorable tools.

That doesn't bother me........ it makes me happy!

[Dave Zellers]

That doesn't bother me........ it makes me happy!

Yes- but then you realize that thing would have really come in handy on your previous project!

And then you remember that's why you bought it!

[Doug Garson]

I posted this idea on a previous thread, I think on shop organization. Often when I can't find something it's because the last time I reorganized the shop I put it in a new place which at the time seemed like a better place. I'll start my search for it in the old place where I used to keep it. When that happens and I eventually find it and I'm finished using it, I'll put it back in the first place I looked not the new "better" place. Course there's no guarantee that next time I need it I won't look in the "better" place.

[Chris Parks]

I have been out of the workshop for some weeks which is very unusual for me and the other day I walked in and saw that I had left out 8 casters for a job but I am damned if I can remember what it was. To make it worse I have a vague idea Mrs P. asked me to make something for her using the casters and she can't recall it either.

[Barry McFadden]

When I was younger and looking for something I always remember the words of my mother...bless her soul... "Well it has to be somewhere!".....thanks mom...

[Chris Parks]

When I was younger and looking for something I always remember the words of my mother...bless her soul... "Well it has to be somewhere!".....thanks mom...

And it took me a year before I found my favourite tape measure by accident, it was somewhere.

[Doug Garson]

Probably the last place you looked. :D

[Charlie Hinton]

I make a feeble effort to keep my hoarder tendencies in check but I am a sucker when it comes to useless gadgets. If I was affluent I would have more and better useless gadgets (hummm... how can expensive and useless be better than cheap and useless??).

My go to trick is searching for something, finding something else that's long lost, putting the "find" in a special place where I can find it...but of course that place is instantly forgotten and it's lost again.

[Ken Barney]

It happens to all of us.

About a year ago I started taking taking Ginkgo Biloba because they say it helps your memory and cognition. Took it for about a week, then I'll be darned if I didn't forget where I put the bottle. :)

[Osvaldo Cristo]

Guys, you are funny. Thanks for share your experience... actually I think humans can be very funny. Life is a challenge.

[Kevin Jenness]

When something turns up in the place I already looked for it twice, I just assume someone is messing with my head. Now if I can just find that guy...

[Bill McNiel]

I was going to reply to this thread a couple of days ago but got momentarily distracted and then couldn't remember which thread it was.

FWIW- I now have a Whiteboard in the shop that I post all "thoughts" on in a feeble attempt to keep on track.

Edit 5 minutes later - I came on SMC today to research a sawset and ended up posting on this thread this instead, went back to the shop and remembered why I was on SMC.

[Ron Hampe]

Happens to me every day!

[Brian Nguyen]

One time I tore my garage shop apart half way to hell looking for the wooden mallet. Turns out it was on the bench all along under the magazine that I was reading right before I decided to bang out some dovetails.
The clean up took the rest of the weekend and I never got to the DTs.

[Jim Koepke]

(hummm... how can expensive and useless be better than cheap and useless??).

The expensive and useless usually looks better, the finish is smooth so it doesn't dig into your skin and it doesn't break the first time you do try to do something with it.

At one time tool holders with various items stored in the handle seemed like a neat thing to have. Just like all the other fancy multi-tools they soon proved useless compared to the real thing. The only multi tools that do seem useful are the ones made to use different sewing needles. Those have helped with sewing together some heavy materials.

jtk

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Spent yesterday trying to clean out part of the barn (getting ready to stack even more hay than before) found stuff. Tools I had misplaced, cast iron pans I intended to clean up, old wooden kiddie furniture to be refinished, three pony saddles, a harness, a sled, There was stuff I forgot I had, stuff I did not know I had and a few things I remember searching for, but I can't remember why I was looking for them.

[Lee DeRaud]

After searching that is when you end up ordering a new one and then finding the original.I wish.

My big plastic bin full of zip-ties went walkabout the last time I needed some. So I bought some more...now those are missing too.

[James Pallas]

It gets better. By the time I got to the end of this thread I forgot what I was going to say. The good part is I don't care so I don't have to think about it.

Oops forgot what people call me??? Oh well maybe another Friday tomorrow.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Gere on the farm, I carry a multi tool on my belt nearly 24-7. Comes in handy for cutting twine, opening boxes, using the pliers to grab things, used the scissors to cut open tyvek shipping envelope just yesterday. It is made by Gerber. It is used at least a dozen times a day. It is certainly not as good as having good quality tools for the individual jobs it does. But I can't see carrying a tool belt with 10 pounds of tools everywhere I go. I cut wire, twine, vines and even use it to grab prickly stuff like thistle, to prune back a few briars, file an edge on my hatchet, occasionally as a screw driver and a lot of other things. It is my second Gerber multitool and I have carried them for almost 20 years now. My Yankee Push drill has the bits in the handle. Never saw a push drill that din't. In this day of battery powered everything, they are not as popular as 50 yrs ago. Helped a guy build a kitchen at an off grid cabin and he used two push drills for nearly everything. The plywood panels were cut in his garage back home, but final assembly was with the push drills.

[Todd Mason-Darnell]

On a related point, I have been suffering from "I dropped it and it went into a black hole" Recently, within the space of a week, I dropped a steel screw for a brusso hinge, a clamp for the Wynn filter and a pencil and had them all disappear in my shop.

[John M Wilson]

On a related point, I have been suffering from "I dropped it and it went into a black hole" Recently, within the space of a week, I dropped a steel screw for a brusso hinge, a clamp for the Wynn filter and a pencil and had them all disappear in my shop.

While this is normally what happens to me, recently I have been the recipient of a few items on their way out of the black hole.

I had a green-tinted sheet metal screw (the kind used for attaching the ground wire in an electrical fixture) suddenly appear on my work bench. It must have come from one of your workshops, because it didn't come from mine. I also had a rubber cup-like cover to who-knows-what appear on a ledge outside my garage. :confused:

It's always small, insignificant things that appear -- never anything useful like a cordless drill, Domino, or 20" jointer. :D

[James Pallas]

On a related point, I have been suffering from "I dropped it and it went into a black hole" Recently, within the space of a week, I dropped a steel screw for a brusso hinge, a clamp for the Wynn filter and a pencil and had them all disappear in my shop.
You didn't get the memo. Wood and concrete have the ability to absorb anything. They are especially good at swallowing anything that impacts the surface. Drop something? Don't bother to look, it's gone.
Jim

[Tom Stenzel]

I keep a chalkboard in the shop on which I write the things that I am missing and looking for so I can remember. I cross them off if I find them. Sometimes the same thing shows up again, usually my Starrett square and my digital calipers. I will be needing a bigger chalkboard soon.

I tried that. Now I'm looking for the chalk.

-Tom