The Cost of Organziation

I wrote this for a partner site Ablemasters.com but it really applies to why I created Mongoracks. 

I suppose I have something in common with most folks in that I'm not a multimillionaire. I don't have extra entire buildings to dedicate to emergencies, I don't have tons of extra cabinets in the house to be perfectly organized. Many folks I'm sure are in the same boat. So I value efficient organization. It earks me when I see some tool porn and a guy has 10 screwdrivers in an entire tool chest drawer. Sure there's a nice foam cutout and sure you can get to it easily but that's an entire drawer dedicated to only a few tools. That's a very expensive inefficient type of storage. Its nice if you have the garage or house space to put in another tool chest and can afford it but I have to think most folks would probably default to having a tool drawer thats got 50 tools in it instead of 10 just so they don't have to have another tool chest or straight up cant afford one.

Organizational Volumetric Efficiency - I don't see a definition much for discussion on this on the internet so I'll define this is "how much of a thing can you get into a storage space in a satisfactorily organized manner".

Organizational Efficiency Cost - Expressed in terms of cubic inches of storage space lost due to inefficiencies in organization

Organization Organizer Cost - The direct dollar cost of the devices used to organize things such as the cost of a tool chest.

Its up to you on where you want to be as far as Organizational Volumetric Efficiency. Maybe you want to have one closet dedicated to one item or maybe you want to put your entire collection of emergency supplies in there. Just realize that generally the more easily available have a lower efficiency.

According to one source housing construction costs in Wisconsin are on average $212/sq ft. Definitely not a precise number but we'll use it for conversation. If you have a 3'x'3 closet with a swing out door that would roughly cover 27 sq ft for the closet plus another 27 sq ft for the door so 54 sq ft = $3816 cost of the closet, plus lets say $4000/yr in taxes for a 2000 sq ft house, our 54 sq ft of space would cost $108/yr in tax. maybe another $1800/yr to heat the house= $.90/sq ft or $48.60/year to heat the closet. All in your initial cost is $3,816 and annual cost would be $156.60. Thats probably very expensive for most folks to store one item. Lets say we're storing one backpack 1' wide x 1' deep by 2' tall, thats 1x1x2=2 cu ft. Assuming the closet has an 8' celing, the closet is then 3x3x8 =72 cubic feet but again we cant use the space the door consumes to open so double that to 114 cu ft dedicated to store 2 cu ft worth of goods. This would be 1.4% utilization of the space and for the 2 cu ft bag being stored, could cost $1908 per cubic foot of initial cost, and $78.30 per year in taxes and heat.  Now lets say you have a more efficient system of storage that allows you to put 10 bags of the same size in there. Those bags are now costing you $190.08 in initial housing costs and $7.83 per bag per year to store. Now granted you'll be paying thoses costs whether you have the bags in there or not, when considering how big of a house to purchase, or whetehr to put up that storage shed or put an addition on, this type of analysis might be worth it. For most folks the version of this conversation that's more applicable would be, "Do I need to put use the hall closet also or can i fit it in this one?" or "Should I put a storage cabinet in the basement in addition to the one I already have.". The point is higher organizational volumetric efficiency will allow you to be prepared for more situations by utilizing the same amount of storage space. 

What about just throwing things in a drawer or pile? Have you ever seen a hoarders house where the goods are stacked up to the ceiling? Total disarray but very high density of items. I'm not condoning hoarding by any means, I just want to say sometimes the highest density of storage is just having everthing in a box? The more you spread it out and make it easier to find, the more air you put between items, the less items you can fit in a space. Its obviously up to choose how to manage your business, just realize theres usually an inverse relationship between storage density and ability to find something quickly and easily. 

Personally I really admire organizational systems that are very high density, yet well organized. Check out this article about tool chest organization  at MyModernMet. It talks about among other things, this tool chest.

This is by far the best example of high density organization I've ever seen. Every tool needed for the job packed into a tiny space with what seems to be great access to all of the tools.  As far as I'm concerned this is the gold standard for folks who have the time  to make this happen. 

This brings up another point. Can you imagine how much time it took to think through where each of these items goes? How many times a particular tool was moved or re-fit because of the addition of another tool? The same balance flows through to all of our lives. How much time do I want to invest in organization? I could throw it all in a box and be done in 5 minutes? or I could get out the cad program and design/3D print a little holder for each particular thing and find an exact right spot for each one at a cost of 100x the effort it took to throw it in a box. Where do you want to be? I'm guessing lots of folks have ambitions to have great high density organization, but lack the time, money, or ambition to make it happen. But that's ok, maybe it gives us a little goal to work towards, or maybe it empowers us to realize that the 80% solution with 20% effort is good enough and to be happy at that. 

It's really up to you on how much time, money, and ambition you want to put into organizing your life, just think it through and be aware theres many different ways to do it. Just keep in mind one little rule... "will I be able to find it when I need it". If the answer is no, you better re-think the plan. 

Where is that thing?

I can't hardly talk about this without talking about Order of Retreivability. A concept that I'm sure many folks have had over time about keeping the more used tools closer and more available, but in the contemporary era Adam Savage has defintely popularized it with his discussion of First Order of Retreivability. 

To me the concept is simple. Put the things I use more together and easier to get to. That's got to be coupled with two more bits of discussion. First is how clean do I want my shop and second is how your own mind works with remembering locations of things. 

Shop Cleanliness

Not cleanliness in the form of sweeping up, but cleanliness in the form of having things in drawers and cabinets vs having them out in the open such as pegboard and racks next to your tools. Personally, everything belongs in a cabinet or drawer. I'm not in a production environment generally, so I'm not trying to industrial engineer a process to remove two extra motions to get the job done. If you're in that world it may be important to you. I guess what I'm saying is it's up to you as to how you define your first order. For me, it's open the drawer, get the screwdriver. For you, it might be having a wrench dangling from a string to do the one job at the vice you do 1000 times per week. 

Remembering Locations:

While we're talking about organization, lets talk about speed to finding things and memory. 

I sometimes forget where a thing is. If I set my car keys down and walk away, lots of times, I won't remember where I put them. So instead of committing to memory each location, each time I put them down, I try to set them down in the same spot or set of spots every time. My target is the key bowl by the door. I come in, I take my keys out and I put them in the bowl. Now instead of knowing where I put them down last time, I generally only remember "the key bowl is where my keys are" when I want to leave. I operate like that on a lot of fronts. I don't know where my red phillips screwdriver is, but I know it should be in the third drawer down in the bottom tool chest as thats where I keep phillips screwdrivers. I think this is a very valid tactic for design of organization. Establishing a repetative spot to keep each type of item. Sometimes nametags help. Maybe one on the drawer front or on the shelf. The key is to use it, and get it committed to memory. Even after this it can still be challenging enough. So, one recommendation is to find a place to put the thing, then put it there over and over, try not to change it, and hopefully when you need it, you will have put it there last time you used it.

Balancing organization and retrievability

On one end of the spectrum, you've packed up every single tool in the smallest box you can find with no order, purely how dense can I get these tools in here. Maybe you're doing this to ship them or such. In this case, there's minimal organization and minimal retreivability. A homeowner may want to have tools organized, have a decent size tool chest, with drawers for each type of tool, and have things packed in kind of tight, which is ok because they only need to use it once per year. A mechanic might use the 10mm short socket on a 3/8 ratchet 200 times in a day, so they may have it on a cart with a designated holder on the outside to grab in a second or less. I guess the more you use something, the more available you want to make it. The less you use something, the farther you can pack it away.