Slowing Down To Save Time

Yes, this sounds paradoxical. But one thing that 10 years of rural life have taught me is this: when you have plenty of space to put things, you can get sloppy about it.  

That is not my tool box. Not by a light year. But before talking about why,  let's consider socket sets. Yes, sockets.

I have hundreds of the things, mostly inherited. The few dozen I brought with me from town were well organized in an old tool box I once purchased with S&H Green Stamps. I could always put my hand on what I needed, fast.

Finding myself with three places where we store equipment, I could see why my father-in-law put tools everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Unlike my small stash, however, these tools were not sorted. He worked at a breakneck pace and the work was good, but organizing things for later use? He called that "piddling," and it was not real work to him.  He had buckets of tools, jars of fasteners, and sockets every darned place you could imagine.

I'm Type-A about clutter, so it drove me bonkers until I discovered a simple truth about any pile of stuff: if you go after it methodically and do not add more stuff, it will eventually sort itself out. So this Fall, I began to organize sockets: 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" drives, SAE, Metric, "deeps," "shallows," six-point and twelve-point sockets. I have specialty ones for removing oxygen sensors and spark plugs.

I am nearly done, and guess what? I have a full set for each of the places where we park tractors or cars. My father-in-law was always hunting for just the right size. When I'm done, I won't have to do that any more. Any sizes I'm missing I'll buy individually, until everything is ready to roll without me walking to another building to get one measly socket.

Makes one wonder what we might do if we addressed every mess that way. We confront messes daily but if we also clean up a little bit daily, without adding to it, we might save our mental health, our neighborhoods, the places we call home. 

We might save the world.

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