Organised chaos

I have mostly been working from my dad’s workshop for the last week.

There is a stereotype of the mad inventor who works from his garden shed. Well, my dad is a little like that. He spent the last 40 or so years inventing electronic stuff for other people from his shed, he calls it a workshop, at the end of the garden.

However I am not going to talk about all those. For those with an untrained eye his workshop looks like a bit of a mess - although it is much tidier than it used to be. However I like to call it “organised chaos”.

There are labelled boxed on the wall with random collections of things in them. There are currently three “normal” printers and a 3d printer. There are a selection of computer and electronics books on the shelves from the 1980s onwards, the newest is probably about 20 years old.

Ironically it is only since he retired that it has taken on a form of organisation - before that it would definitely have classed as just chaos.

I work a little bit like this sometimes. All my paperwork lives in a single pile that grows over time. When it gets to an annoying height I spend an hour or two sorting it out and filing it where it should be. The nice thing is that since most things are now paperless it means that I get less paperwork and it happens less often.

My wife would also say my office needs a tidy every now and again. Maybe I should show her my dad’s workshop so she can appreciate how much tidier I am :)