Organizing your tools

摘要

One problem that is common to all labs is that of trying to keep tools organized. Often each shaker or chamber will have its own set of tools, possibly including specialized tools that need to remain with it. However, tools tend to be borrowed and sometimes do not find their way home again. The result can be a considerable amount of unproductive time spent searching for them, or the cost of replacing them. There are two simple ways of resolving this problem. The first is with a marked pegboard. Simply put up a pegboard on a wall near the shaker or chamber. The pegboard would have hooks on it to hold all of the tools required for normal work plus hooks for the specialized tools. But this is the first step - having a "home" for each tool. The next step is to mark the pegboard with the outline of each tool that goes on it. This can be done simply with a magic marker, as shown in Figure 1, or by painting the board with the outline - or shadow - of the tool, as shown in Figure 2. Every tool will then have its own personal home. The pegboard helps to keep tools organized, but doesn't keep them from walking off and becoming lost. The way to prevent this is by noticeably marking the tools.