As most of my posts, the main reason I write them is to share some thoughts on recent things I’ve been working on. This one is also one of them, as I’ve been cleaning up, moving and mostly re-organizing my stuff.

So it’s all about storage and that might seem a bit boring and at times it is. There’s a good reason for me to write about this as I’ve got some things that I do that might be benificial for any of you!

Dimensions

On of the first things I do once I’ve chosen to use a certain tool (or storage system), what I’ll do is I will take note of the dimensions of the object, these might be rough for now, but you can go as detailed as you would like!

The main benefits of keeping a list of the dimensions of certain tools is knowning if you could fit them somewhere when you’re not around the object itself. For example, I’ve got 3 different locations I can store stuff, but transporting it on my bike or in a bag might do the trick. But what if you have a crate at 1 location and need to see if it fits a certain device?

For the storage systems themselves, having a detailed note on inner and outer dimenions might come in handy at time as well! I keep all of those dimenions in Obsidian, my note-taking app of choice..

Retrievability

As a firm believer in first order retrievability by Adam Savage I’ve also been rethinking the way I store my tools.

As an example, if you use specific tools for a single machine, store the tools with the machine itself. For example, I’ve always kept some tweezers next to my 3D printers, but I’ve also been using them for other purposes. Since they are so cheap you might as well get two and store one of them at the printer… While keeping the other one in the bin next to my desktop for miscellaneous work.

There’s a bunch more ideas in Every Tool’s a Hammer, I can highly recommend the book!

Composability

The last part might be the most interesting one. It’s all about interopability and composability. Let’s say I need to do a job at a certain place, I don’t want to move all the tools from a certain storage method and combine them with another in another case. Could I instead let the systems work together? For example, a systainer tower might not be compatible with a other storage system, but could I print/create/make an adapter so they might?

Or could I tag certain things that I use at the same time together with a visual cue like a certain colored sticker? If I’m working on a hardware project, could I launch the toolchain I need on my computer by scanning an NFC tag that’s attached to the storage container?

Anyhow, these are just a couple of ideas and notes on storage systems! If you have any ideas or thoughts on this, feel free to contact me!