My coworker's blunt comment about my tool drawer made me rethink everything

I used to organize my wrenches by size, then color, then brand, thinking tidiness meant efficiency. Last Tuesday my tech said, 'You spend more time arranging than fixing,' and after watching him grab the right 10mm in two seconds flat, I realized he was right. I threw out my OCD system, grouped by job type instead, and now I'm actually finishing brakes in half the time. Has anyone else had a system that felt logical but was secretly slowing you down?

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tyler8541d ago

Three years as a mechanic and I had my sockets in rainbow order by brand, which sounds insane now but it looked so clean. A customer actually watched me hunt for a 13mm for five minutes once and just pointed at the tray where it was sitting under a rag. I argued with my buddy about it for weeks, saying color coding helped me spot missing pieces faster. Then I tried grouping by brake jobs and engine work like you said, and honestly it felt wrong for a day but now I grab what I need without thinking. Your tech is right, time spent staring at a drawer is time not spent turning bolts. I still keep them neat, just not museum neat anymore.