5 Essential DIY Shop Efficiency Tips for Small Workspaces

There’s that old idiom about death and taxes. Another sure thing in life: If you are a DIYer, your garage or shop will never be big enough. Even if the square footage has a comma or two in the number, contents and tools invariably grow to fill every nook and cranny. Some of us have small shops—big in heart and ambition but tight in confines. In these cases, we need all the tips we can get to make any space work a little more efficiently.

Balance working ON the shop with working IN the shop
Kyle Smith

Over-organizing is a trap. It looks cool on Instagram, but visual appeal doesn’t always translate into the best workflow and use. Be careful not to spend all your time trying to make the shop perfect, only to walk in the door one day and realize you made a tool-and-part museum rather than a useful workspace. If the space is the project, fine, but make it work for you, not the other way around.

Be realistic about what “fits”
Kyle Smith

While tidying up, it’s easy to accidentally banish some of your parts or tools. Re-packing 10 pounds into a five-pound sack can help, but usually getting realistic about what to get rid of is what helps most. Organization is often a balance between space and access. We have to decide what objects are going to be near at hand and what will end up under two layers of heavy totes—and likely forgotten about until the next shuffle or garage clean-out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but be careful about what ends up deep in storage and put it there in a condition that ensures it will come out of storage working like it did when it went in.

Focus matters
Kyle Smith

It’s pretty obvious what I’m working on… because everything else is buried.

When space is hard to come by, focusing on one thing at a time helps keep projects moving forward. While it is really fun to have three projects running at once—because every work session in the garage gives you some choice as to what gets done—it functionally shrinks the working area for each project. Even in my mid-sized 24’x30′ garage, I have to sometimes zero in and wrap up one project before starting another so I can stay organized and functional. With just one job on the brain, it is far easier to pick up and put down tasks without mixing up parts or mislaying tools.

Multipurpose and modular
Kyle Smith

Last I checked, one is fewer than two. In a small workspace, storing fewer items is easier. So, anything that can be multi-use goes a long way. Large, rarely used tools belong tucked away. But a mount for