Friday, July 7, 2023

Organization in the Chaos

There's a lot to be said for the occasional cleanup.

Our hobby of railroading, including model railroading and rail photography, is one where we seek a break from the rest of our worlds.  When life is good, a break is a nice and relaxing thing.  When life is hard or chaotic sometimes the break is the only thing keeping us sane.  How much better are those breaks when you can jump in and get right to work?

If the workbench is a mess it is much harder to get right to work.  Recently I was searching and searching for detail parts I was sure I had in my inventory.  After a half hour of rooting around, I realized it was well past time to get organized.  The first step?  Laying everything out to get started.  


There's no one way to organize things like this; I organized first by manufacturer and then by category.  I decided to take the piles in the image and put like items together:  antenna, snowplows, MU hoses/MU receptacles, eye bolts/grab irons/lift bars, doors/grates/hatches, etc etc.  Not perfect, of course, but finally categorized in a way that should held avoid searching blindly.

In these humid days of summer, do yourself a favor and organize the workbench.  Your hobby breaks will benefit!