#you can tell im excited about progress by how often ive been posting

[bwobgames]

It works lets fucking gooooooo

[wawek]

what's your ranking of all the rpg systems you've played from most to least favourite? i don't have anyone to play with atm but i'd like to try out a new system someday! (<- has played neuroshima most of her life and there's only so much depressing post apo one can stand)

1. City of Mist - great control over your character, you can basically make them do literally anything you dream up. Character progression is very focused on your characters personal growth (or getting more evil :P). Not too complicated (speaking as someone on campaign 3 whos only skimmed character creation and the moves shorthand guide)

2. Now my ranking falls apart, i have about the same fondness of both Monster of the Week and DnD.

Monster of the Week is very simple, which is good if youre just in it to have a short campaign with people who dont like learning a lot of rules. I found that playing it for longer made me feel like my characters class didnt matter that much besides my base stats... def more of a narrative based game but also i mostly took the less exciting classes so maybe thats why. Still! Pretty fun and you dont have to invest a lot to get started.

DnD 5e, jakie jest, każdy widzi... It's good, i already know how to play it and you can do a lot with it 👍 at the same time you cant do all that much, role play is not mechanically rewarding enough in my opinion, and trying to make it do what you want it to do often feels like a struggle. Its good its bad, i like it but i wish people stopped telling me to reskin dnd when im looking for a survival horror ttrpg.

Some quick mentions of things i played not enough to have an opinion on: did a one shot of Call of Cuthulhu 7e in like 2018 and ive been trying to play it again ever since with no luck 🙏. Played Fiasco once as a break between campaigns, quick and fun if youre looking for one evening kinda deal. Wanderhome is an adorable game that ive tried only once for a short short time but id love to play again at a tea party or something cute like that. Tails of equestria 👍

[nikomedes]

(i am sending you writing asks) can i get a uhhhhh... number #1, #13, #19, and a #23 please thank you

[drive thru speaker crackle] ask machine broke

jk thank u luke!!! i am sorry this is so fucking long

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

so adhd is a disorder where--

im joking but uh. off the top of my head:

fallout 3 mlw/charon fic that i just. have put way too much time into mostly as a challenge to myself to understand the ship (13k+ words)

disco elysium time loop fic which is so close to done. its short and sweet. CAN I CROSS THE FINISH LINE? no (4k words)

pokemon swsh trainer/hop fanfic about their friendship during the gym challenge as reflected on by hop as they prepare to part ways for college. another "haha im playing this game this might be a fun challenge" that got so goddamn out of hand (8k words)

murderbot fanfic ive posted about before where ART tries to hold hands. its also short, mostly written, and something i SHOULD finish. but will i? (i keep saying "no" but i mean "hopefully") (3k words)

original story closing the book on a character i played in a dark fantasy intrigue ttrpg. hey! this game ended 4 months ago! why is this still not done (12k+ words)

a visual novel? a whole goddamn visual novel about h3x, another ttrpg character? this game has officially been ended prematurely due to gm burnout so realistically i will prob never finish this. but also, i kind of want to just to teach myself how to make a visual novel? OOPS? (??? words bc figuring that out would require booting three different programs. but it's at least 15k+)

my locked tomb western au fanfic that i started for the 2021 tltbb and then basically dropped due to mixed reception and getting burned out on that fandom. another project i will probably never finished but with the new book coming out who tf knows (22k+ words)

an outlined lesbian southern horror novel about a woman being seduced by a haunted house. this project is so exciting but. please scroll up. when am i gonna start it. and DON'T say nanowrimo i'll cry (2300 words)

worldbuilding for a beam saber ttrpg game i want to run very badly but realistically won't run for 3 years. but yknow. its not like ive got anything else to write (2k words)

worldbuilding im behind on for a magical realism 1930s monster of the week ttrpg game im running this fall. i literally need to get this to the players by the end of this week ideally lmfao (??? words bc its spread out over 3 documents and a google slides presentation)

more. there's more. im just going to stop now but i need u to know there's more

13. Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?

much to the chagrin of anyone who wants me to, you know. make a living writing, publish again, "do something with my talent," i almost exclusively write WAY TOO LONG stories about the tabletop roleplaying games i'm in on my wordpress. i also write approximately one fanfiction every two years, mostly for wildly different fandoms, here on my ao3.

i would honestly say about 40% of the writing i do is just for me? (unless we want to talk about the nonexistent traffic to that wordpress blog or how often my fellow players have to go "alex i simply do not have the time to read 20k words about the blorbo you created for our game," in which case it could be argued that 90% of my writing is only consumed by me slkdjlfjg) i think it's super important to write for yourself and not attach your enjoyment of writing to engagement/web traffic. the internet will make u insane about that

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

oh man this character has a complex relationship w their mom

characters talking "flatly" or delivering something deadpan

"trudged" (insert paul bettany's monologue about trudging from a knight's tale here)

"the moral of the story is, it's not about building something that outlives you, it's about enjoying the life you're living with the people you love" character arc (i stole this arc from my life)

having characters do fucked up and evil things to coffee bc i can't stand the taste of it

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

i'm restraining myself only to what i've already listed above. the visual novel is the oldest, bc i love my terrible son and i do actually really want to learn how to write and program VNs

[tigerdrop]

hey i just wanna say the long posts genuinely make my day. also can you talk more about gordon freeman character because the way you write him makes me quake in my gay little boots

i would love to talk about gordon freeman. thank u for the opportunity

the first thing i need to communicate about gordon is that this dude sucks. and i say this in the fondest way possible. he is a bitch from the moment he drops into the world until the moment he goes out. if you dont believe me, give it another watch! gordons mouthy and rude for no real reason, at least so far as “being a regular dude on his way into work” goes, and this dude goes around calling his coworkers names with zero provocation. (of course, we all know that the reason is because its a funny guy improv stream that borrows a bit from freemans mind, but im talkin from a character sense.)

but my argument isnt just that gordon freeman sucks. its that he sucks in a very specific way that i find insanely endearing. i love this dude. i love to hate him. hes awful in a very mundane sense - weve all known a guy like this, at least if youve spent too much time online - and its cathartic to watch him suffer because of it.

gordons a smart guy. as written, hes gotta be - hes a recent MIT grad, on his way to work at a top-secret research facility to do weird shit with crystals and theoretical physics. but the thing about smart guys is that theyre often......selectively intelligent. we can see this in the way that he has a hard time navigating his surroundings, and needs the science crew to guide him through it and keep him alive.

this is one of those things that is a natural consequence of somebody going through the game for the first time, but that i am interpreting as “gordon is kind of stupid sometimes”. its uncharitable but its not like he doesnt deserve it. he likes to boss around the crew as if he knows what hes doing, when he often very much does not, and is fond of demeaning their intelligence. hes real bad about this with tommy in particular, treating him like hes a kid whos playing at being a scientist when tommy is actually a decade older than him. all i am saying is that gordon ought to stay humble. hes awful cocky when he perceives himself as better than others.

which, i think, tracks with how cocky he gets when he gives up on the whole “well-meaning citizen” thing and just unloads bullets into people. he puts up a front of being a Nice Guy, you know, just some dude caught in a bad situation who doesnt like seeing his companions obliterate every NPC they come across, but that doesnt stop him from cackling like a fucking madman and mowing down aliens (and soldiers) every once in awhile. when he stops seeing himself as helpless and starts seeing himself as the one in control, the gloves come off. he gets mean. and i think thats very sexy of him

this, among other things, is why i am insistent that gordon freeman is a control freak. he desperately wants to be in control of the situation at all times, shepherding around the science crew primarily by bitching at them, but its of limited success. its futile. sisyphean. tommy, coomer, bubby, and benrey exist almost to torment him with exactly the thing that would make him suffer the most: a gaggle of people running around causing problems for him, but he cant go anywhere without them b/c hes reliant on them to make it out alive.

its perpetual suffering, and its cathartic to watch. and funny, too. and if youre a little weirdo like me, its very, very enjoyable. how twisted up he gets when nobodys listening to him! how sweaty and frazzled he must look. its cute, and it also makes me want to reach through the screen and shake him and tell him to just be a little nicer. he wants control but he doesnt know how to attain it, he doesnt know how to play nice like a real leader. i think its a neat contrast to gordon freeman as we know him in HL2, where he literally is the leader of the resistance and has to live up to it. this is gordon freeman but if he was moe through helplessness.

“helpless” is, i think, a great way to describe him. a core bit of imagery in half life is this sense of railroadedness and helplessness, with gordon freeman being put into play like a chess piece and having no choice but to move forward. and this iteration of gordon leans into that by being totally dependent on the science crew in order to make progress and Not Die. and hes also subject to the whims of benrey, local eldritch weirdo who has basically made it his life mission to fuck with gordon.

gordons anxieties dont help with that. if he wasnt so fun to stress out and fuck with, the science crew probably wouldnt do it so much! too bad for him that they like fucking with him so much that he was driven into a panic attack (multiple times, even, depending on your interpretation). hes got that real neurotic mindset. always worrying about shit that could go wrong, and attempting to exert control over his surroundings in an effort to control the anxiety.

IMO the real way to nail the Neurotic Gordon Freeman Experience is to combine the ever-present anxiety with his pervasive sense of self-loathing. he openly states that he has no friends and nobody seems to like him, and to that, i really gotta say, i wonder why. he doesnt really seem to factor in that hes kind of a bitch, and has way too high an estimation of his own intelligence relative to everybody elses. its really one of the worst ways to be: aware that people dont like you, but unaware of exactly why. if he was like, 10% nicer, he probably wouldnt have had half as many issues getting through black mesa, but also, its funny to see him squawking his way through the game. so, you know.

its stuff like that that makes me headcanon him as a dude with low self-esteem in general. convinced that hes not likable, not attractive, out of his element......impostor syndrome, except that theres some truth to it. this is a guy who truly does not realize how good he has it: he really is just an average shitty dude, and yet, somehow, benrey took a shine to him. some poor motherfucker out there actually likes him and wants to suck his dick. thats dedication

also, i keep bringing up “repression” when i talk about gordon. and hopefully, what ive been talking about helps explain why. he has a strong desire to be a regular dude, not just murdering his way through black mesa, but if hes pushed hard enough he leans into it. gets bossy. picks up a cigar off a dead soldier and takes a long drag, before smacking forzen around with a pistol and ordering him around. gordon freeman is a regular, kind of anxious guy who likes competitive swimming and streaming on justin.tv and making anime references, and he is also a guy who takes a filthy pleasure in making a trained soldier his bitch. and i didnt make up any of this shit - this is purestrain canon, baby. this is a guy with problems

to me, this screams the kind of guy who represses a lot of shit b/c he doesnt feel like its morally decent. you run into this guy a lot online: the wokeboy, the online leftist, the guy who spends too much time on social media websites. (like reddit. i think he would actively use reddit and he would never get any appreciable amount of karma but he never stops posting. its sisyphean! cathartic.) from the way he talks about “bootboys”, i think it tracks. he knows about imperialism, he knows about feminism, but at the end of the day hes your average american white dude who struggles with internalizing it.

a lot of those dudes struggle with sex and gender issues. (dont we all.) when youre trying to be a Good Person(tm), you spend a lot of time thinking about your own relationship to sex and kink and all that shit. and i maintain that a too-online dude who buries a lot of his control freak tendencies would also try to bury a lot of weird sexual shit in an attempt to seem Normal and Well-Adjusted and not like a little freak. i justify this by the sheer number of times gordon blurts out weird sex shit as a joke. there are only two outcomes to making that many piss jokes: either youre secretly a piss guy, or you lathe-of-heaven yourself into becoming one. i will stand by this

ive talked a lot about why this dude sucks. now, let me talk to you about what makes gordon so much fun to write. first things first: hes funny! a subjective evaluation, yeah, but both in- and out-of-character, hes aiming to be funny. and being the straight man to everybody else plays into that whole “helplessness” thing.

secondly: underneath it all, there is a good dude under there. gordon worries when his companions get hurt, he tries to clean them off and patch them up, and hes got his lil leftist heart in the right place. you could even read a lot of his bossy, bitchy demeanor as him wanting to make sure everyone gets out okay and doesnt hurt themselves. when it comes to animals and anti-imperialist sentiment, gordons a pretty good guy.

hes the kind of guy who would probably see a dog on the street and get excited and play with it, but would get really prickly about the correct way to put dishes in the dishwasher. control freak tendencies.

finally, subjecting such a miserable, tormented guy to even more psychological anguish is really, really fun. you feel a little bad for him, but he kind of deserves it. so many problems he goes through are purely of his own making, and if gordon would just relax and quit trying to hard to maintain control - of himself, of the people around him - and own up to having Problems and Issues, he would be a happier guy. but thats why its fun to bend him until he breaks. being a little control freak myself, putting gordon freeman thru psychosexual torment is cathartic.

when it comes to writing his thought processes, the fact that he is canonically some kind of psychotic (yes, i am boldly claiming this. suck me) and i am also canonically some kind of psychotic makes it easier to write what i think his thought processes are. i just give him my brain issues of “getting lost in thought” and “overthinking fucking everything”. a touch of paranoia helps. even if i dont explicitly label him as schizophrenic please know that i am writing him as a paranoid little nutcase at all times because, uh, you write what you know.

paranoid. anxious. of the mindset that everyones out to get him (which isnt helpful when everyone is out to get him). repressed and deeply Not Normal but trying so very fucking hard to be normal and well-adjusted. a control freak with sadistic tendencies who also really, really likes getting bullied by his best frenemy. a hapless little nerd who sounds really cute when his voice starts to break from nerves. and, most importantly, a dumb jock. do not ever forget this.

thats gordon freeman, babey. hope that helps

[drownedkiwi]

Author fic meme

I was tagged by both @fandomsnstuff and @desiree-harding-fic,,, i love yall sm 

your name: Jordyn!

fandoms you write for: I think ive written equally for both Assassins Creed and TAZ: balance, but i’ve defintely been looking into doing some Dragon Age fics recently, as well as some stardew valley.

where you post: All of my fics go on AO3, but my older ( AC ) stuff is also up on my fanfiction.com account which i no longer use. im pretty sure theres some warrior cats stuff on there too..oof. 

most popular one shot: back to wonderland, which was SO much fun to write!! im not used to one shots so it was a fun challenge.

most popular multi chapter story: Of Arcane energy and missing hearts, which got a lot more popular than i expected! it was one of the first TAZ fics i put out there and the reception of it was so heartwarming, ilysm

favorite story you’ve written: Two week affair, which was my literal baby. it took me nearly three years to finish ( mostly because i took a yearlong gap inbetween after i fell out of the fandom and fic writing all together ) but its one of the biggest pieces ive ever done at 71k words, and i poured a whole lot of love into it. also one of the first ever pieces of fic i ever did! im proud yall. can u tell skdhjskahd

story you were nervous to post: i actually ended up orphaning this piece, starblaster academy, because i wasnt happy with my characterization. it was the first TAZ piece i ever wrote, and i was super nervous about putting it out into such a talented community. 

how do you choose titles: I try to go for puns as often as i can, but mostly i just try to stick with what the story is about and mash it into as few words as possible.

do you outline: only when i know im going to have a beta! otherwise we just kalvinball that shit bro haha we wildin’

how many of your stories are complete? five! i dont finish a lot of pieces, and most sit in my google drive gathering dust :(

how many of your stories are in progress? three at the moment i think?

coming soon: hopefuly a very stupid food truck story me and desiree came up with like, 42 months ago, that ive gotten back onto recently.

do you accept prompts? i would love to! 

upcoming story you’re most excited to write? bro i really wanna write stardew...i really do.....but tacos gotta come first

tagging: @cha-boy-taako​ and @uppercase-disgrace ilyall!!! have fun!!

[language-aholic]

so i know i dont make personal posts very often, but i wanted to tell you guys about my experiences with learning swedish the past year & where im currently at with it.

i originally started learning swedish in september of last year with some friends. we had all decided we wanted to learn a language together & after a while of deciding we all ended up agreeing on swedish because one of the friends in the group had previously met a swedish girl on a cruise that he had fallen for & so we all wanted to help him learn the language to win her over.

everyone started out really motivated, but over time everyone except for me eventually gave up on it & quit studying. unfortunately our friend was rejected by the swedish girl he met on the cruise too which probably didn't help (i dont think she was impressed with his beginner level swedish sentences lol).

through my friends wanting to learn a language with me i had discovered that i really liked swedish pronunciation & the fact that swedish was very easy for me yet still interesting so i kept studying every day for 3 or 4 months straight. i was surprised with how easy keeping motivated was because in the past i had only been able to study languages a few times a month. looking back i have absolutely no idea how i kept up with it for so long lol

eventually though as i ran into problems with swedish my motivation started diminishing over time. i was just beginning to enter the intermediate stages & while i was proud of myself for making so much progress i was also disappointed & discouraged because it had been half of a year & i still wasn't even close to having the pronunciation down. mostly because i was so embarrassed with how bad my pronunciation was that i couldnt even talk to myself in swedish as practice. even when no one was home & i was studying vocab words on memrise alone i could only bring myself to repeat them in a whisper or with my voice down.

after months of this i started getting really frustrated with both myself & swedish so i started trying to branch out by randomly starting new languages expecting different results, but each one had its own difficult pronunciation that provided me with the same issues as swedish & after a few days of starting each new language id just quit them. this happened many times. many. times. but yet each time i was super excited about starting a new language & i felt like i needed to announce it to everyone! this language was going to be the one for me unlike swedish! pronunciation was suddenly going to be easy! ...until it just kept happening with the same results each time & even i couldnt take myself seriously anymore 😂 after the first few times i stopped announcing what "new language im starting now!" though because it was happening at least a few times a month, but believe me ive been through french, korean, japanese, italian, russian, etc. all for a maximum of 2 or 3 days each lol.

now on top of this issue a few months ago after wondering why my motivation had almost completely diminished i finally came to a realization. i had no real connections to swedish. there was nothing about swedish or sweden that really interested me or that i really liked. while it's great & all i was never personally interested in it. i had only started learning it on a whim because of my friends. so why am i even learning swedish? I don't want a years worth of effort to go down the drain, but it's no wonder im never motivated. the only thing i ever liked about it was the pronunciation of the language & i cant even do that. after a year of learning it i can't even speak a sentence in swedish & i have no connections to it so why?

this is where ive currently been at with it. i think i would be enjoying swedish much more if i could actually accurately speak the language but for that i need to be able to comfortably sit down & practice pronunciation on my own but im always just so hard on myself. it's definitely an underlying personal confidence/self image issue that i need to find a way through so hopefully i can figure out how soon. im also definitely planning on taking some time to find things about sweden & swedish culture that i really like to hopefully help motivate me.

sorry for such a text heavy post! i feel like i tend to leave you guys in the dark about where i am language wise because im not great at making these kinds of posts so i thought id update you. maybe this will help some of you out there that might be having the same kinds of issues.

[bonniejstarks]

I’m BACK! Why I’ve been gone and what I’ve been up to – Ania.B

It’s been so so long my friends. I would apologize BUT it was time well deserved and much needed. I did not walk away from my blog, far from it. We have been busier than ever and growing a business is no easy feat. Burn out is a word we are all familiar with, a catch all for millennials and the world’s problems. But burn out is all too real and we encounter the topic often especially when talking to fellow creators. Entrepreneurial spirit speaks to so many of us who can not handle the 9-5 grind, but who are we kidding, the grind is actually more intense when you work for yourself. I am excited to finally be able to check in with you on the world wide web again. Instagram is great and all but there is only so much you can say in a limited amount of characters. In truth the blog was broken for a few months, fixing it was put off for far too long. I even started taking coding classes just so this never has to happen again. Ask me in 6 months how that is going! It did end up being a much needed break. Self love is all about knowing when to stop just as much as it is about when to pick up again.

In the time away from the web browser I was able to focus some more attention on myself, and I wish I could tell you that I joined some bad ass classes and got a black belt in karate, or that I am now a champion chess player, but instead I took time to spend with my family, organize my life a little bit, and even though it’s not karate we did join a gym to keep moving and stay healthy, and my brother and nephew came along for the ride so we can all motivate each other. None of us is a stranger to how fast that motivational flame can extinguish when your heart and soul is just not on that elliptical with you. This post is a little glimpse into that journey. I won’t lie, it’s not been the Rocky training montage I was envisioning in my head but I will give us credit for getting to that gym somewhat regularly. Travel is not included and to be fair that does cut a lot into our work-out time. It’s being at home that’s keeping us out of shape: editing at a desk or in bed, sometimes all day everyday, driving everywhere and generally not accounting for energy gained vs. energy lost. I also have to shamefully admit that with age your body does after all require different kinds of love then it did when it was in it’s teens. ‘They’ tell you this all the time, but nobody ever listens. Well I’m here to tell you that ‘They’ are totally right and I think my time has come. It’s been an adjustment, especially because our lives are so irregular and quite literally go against any kind of routine.

Besides getting the fam on board for motivation I have been picking up my Apple Watch so much more often these last few months. Ever since our Whistler adventure getting to know the watch environment I have been so much more confident in the benefits it has been bringing to our lives. Of course fall detection for my mum has been critical and with the most recent series 5 launch we also now have EKG available in Canada to monitor the heart whenever we need it. The idea of closing our activity rings has also been integral to the the way we view time spent moving all together. We will pick up and go for a walk or take a moment to breathe thanks to the stats we get on the Apple Watch. If you watched the Apple Keynote  you will know about this year’s addition of the titanium and ceramic watch faces, both to be worn in very different ways (one more stylish and streamlined, the other optimized for performance and lightweight, can you guess which is which?). The biggest news this year for the watch has been the alway-on-display, which has been highly requested, though as a the watch wearer I was never bothered by the on/off jerk action you needed to make to see the display AND there has been some talk about the battery life being affected as a result, something which the jury is still out on, if you ask me. Some other new and very useful features include a built in compass and cycle tracking for women, the watch no longer takes data from our phones but has it available in the device itself,  the two are becoming more and more independent of each other so you will not longer need the phone to have full functionality of your watch. And just to put things in perspective, a fertility watch alone can set you back $400! If you are still rocking the series 3 watch and wondering if you need to upgrade the answer is 100% yes! These are some game changing features that you do not want to miss out on and having them all in one place and on your wrist no less is the future of technology we could only dream about when we were using our calculator Casio watches in elementary school!

As for working out, I am still working through my bodies capabilities. My 16 year old nephew proved to be quite a personal trainer and knows everything there is to know about how to work the human body. I loved being able to learn something from him. My current circuit includes the treadmill, bicep and tricep curls, squats, sit ups, and when my back has had enough of those (which as it turns out it does more often than I’d like to admit) I will switch those out for suspended leg lifts. I have also been playing around with the Nike Training Club (NTC) app for some suggested exercises to keep myself from the monotony of a routine, from which, as I mentioned earlier, I am so far removed. And for those of you curious to peek into this aspect of our lives, or just to relate, send me a DM and a follow request on my private account @healthyania. I’m hoping to keep this as a space for myself to track progress, document my favourite ways around the gym and just to stay accountable. Cue ‘Eye of the Tiger’ on my ‘Beast Mode’ playlist!

All of these photos were shot on the iPhone 11, eliminating the consumer camera market one phone release at a time! xoxo

Tags: Apple, Apple Watch, fitness, health, tech

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[agilenano]

Agilenano - News: Workshop Organization Ideas

We are finally making some progress in our garage and Im here today to show you our new dust collection system and a peek at one side of our (semi) organized garage workshop!

Would you believe it if I told you that Corey and I have been homeowners for 9 years now and we have never had an organized workshop?

Never, ever.

Weve tried. Ohhhhh have we ever tried. Once we even got far enough to organize our garage and make some progress on the workshop space that we hadbut if were being honest it was really never all that functional.

Nine years, yall. Its a little pathetic.

But. But! We are finally making some progress in this house with the garage and I think that by the time we hit 10 years of owning a home (in August!), well be there.

Fingers crossed.

Were taking a one wall at a time approach to organizing our garage here, and Im feeling really good about how far things have come.

I think that one thing that has always held us back from really getting our workspace organized is that I havent ever felt like I truly have the expertise to do it myself, so Ive waited for a time when Corey and I can work together. The problem is, Corey works full time out of the house and doesnt handle chaos well so on the rare times that we have had the ability to work on it together, he immediately gets overwhelmed and doesnt know what to do!

So basically what Im telling you is that for the last 9 years every time we try to organize our workshop it ends with us both standing in the middle of the garage staring at each other and shrugging our shoulders before giving up and heading back inside to watch television.

Were a good team.

But I finally decided theres absolutely no reason I cant tackle this on my own. I know enough about these tools to know how they should be stored, and honestly Im the one who uses the workshop the most so why shouldnt I decide where it all goes?!

Ive put hours and hours into working out there over the last few weeks and things are finally starting to look so, so good.

I mean I cant complain about this before and after.

Today I wanted to share a few of the tips, tricks, and tools that were using in our garage to keep things organized. Our biggest problem in the past has been that we never really found a space for every single thing out there, so any progress we made was immediately undone as soon as we did a project.

This time around, Im determined that eeeeeeeeverything will have a home, and so far its working!

Againkeep your fingers crossed for me. Toes too, maybe .

So, lets dive into the tricks Im using in this garage that gives me hope Ill keep it more organized than ever before.

Garage Organization ideas, tips, & tricks

This post is sponsored by Rockler, but all opinions and enthusiasm are all me. Thanks for supporting the brands that support Love & Renovations!

1. A dust collection system

This is the one that always makes everyones ears perk up when I mention it on Instagram. A dust collection system will CHANGE YOUR LIFE, I promise. Its definitely more expensive than just using a plain ol shop vac, but its approximately 7 million times more efficient and there are tons of options to customize it!

How does a dust collection system work? Its basically a ginormous shop vac that can attach to the walls in your workshop, and you run a hose off of it that can be attached to the various tools in your shop.

For example, we have one hose running right off of the dust collector that we use to clean the floors, and for quick vacuuming of work surfaces. Then a little further down theres a port we can attach to for the miter saw or other mobile tools in the shop. Further down is another port that is at the perfect spot for use with our lathe, and at the end of the wall is one last port thats meant to be attached to the table saw.

So, every time we use pretty much any tool in our shop, we can quickly hook it up to the vacuum, turn it on, and not have any dust flying around as we work.

I probably dont need to spell this out for you but less sawdust flying around means less sawdust all over my garage floorwhich means less sawdust that gets tracked inside my house.

And that means less cleaning for me!

You see why Im so excited about this situation?

A large dust collection system like this isnt necessarily going to be the most logical investment for the casual woodworker or DIYer, but if youre doing regular projects in your workshop and struggle to keep up with the mess, its really truly worth it. I dont have an exact pricing of what our system looks like, but you should easily be able to set up a similar setup with the tools linked below for less than $1,000.

You can also read more about our dust collection system here from when we first got it!

Heres a rundown of the tools and accessories we have with our dust collector:

Dust Collection Tools + Accessories

This is the newer version of the wall-mounted dust collector we have (ours is several years old and isnt available anymore)

Heres a multi-port tool set that allows you to switch between several different tools.

Heres what the extender hose looks like they have various sizes so you can get exactly what works for your space.

This is the remote switch we have its a little luxury but makes it so nice to be able to turn it on from anywhere in the shop without walking back to the dust collector!

This is the quick change shop and tool set it has the main vacuum connector we use (for cleaning off worktops, etc.) and the floor vacuum, which is probably my most used connector!

And finally, these are the hooks we used to attach the hose to the wall!

If you want to learn more about all of the dust collection system tools and accessories that Rockler offers, just click here to go to the main page. The customization options are essentially endless, so you can mix and match to get exactly what you need!

2. Drawer Organizers

This was a bit of an unexpected hit for me we recently got a new fancy workbench for the garage that has drawer liners in it already (so things dont slide around) and I honestly figured we wouldnt need any additional organization beyond that.

Oh, how naive and foolish I was.

We got to try Rocklers Lock-Align drawer organizer system and hooooooly cow its a game changer. I can find exactly what I need in the drawers within seconds, and since things have a very specific place within the drawer (remember the goal, here?!), its a breeze to clean up when were done.

Also, theres something oh-so-satisfying about opening up a drawer to get a tool and having everything hyper-organized and looking all pretty.

Its the little things, you know?

Drawer Organization Accessories

We grabbed this Lock-Align master kit and its a great way to get started with getting your drawers organized.

This bit organizer is hands down my favorite thing we added for those pesky loose bits that always seem to get lost. Its magnetic, too, so they stay put!

A few of these larger bins and these small ones are great for all the loose things that get lost in your drawers. I use them for pencils, long drill bits, keys, and more.

I also love, love, love this screwdriver rack and this pliers rack for not only screwdrivers and pliers but also scissors and other long skinny things that take up space in the drawers!

There are tons more drawer organizer options just click here to see everything Rockler has in their Lock-Align system. I honestly want to use it for my kitchen too, now! Is that weird?

3. storage for very specific purposes.

Heres where we really dive into the have a place for everything mentality. Over the years Ive learned that a few things that aaaaaalways tend to float around our workshop with no home are the following three things:

Shop towels

Hand sanitizer

Cleaning wipes

Were constantly using them, and so weve always just kind of left them all out on the workbenchbut then they get used and dont make it back to the workbench (since thats not really an official home), and basically I spend half my time in the workshop looking for those three dang things.

In addition to that, we always are in need of a small dumping ground. When Im doing projects its often while Grant naps, and when he wakes up I need to quickly clean up my mess before he starts getting into things I dont always have time to actually put everything away. So, I tend to just dump stuff on the workbench.which means its constantly messy and we have to spend 20 minutes cleaning it up before we can work on it.

So, I needed to solve both of these problems and I found a way to do it with just some simple metal shelves!

I added on shelf above the small workbench that holds our hand sanitizer, cleaning wipes, and a spare roll of shop towels. The other shelf hangs on the side of the small workbench and it holds a roll of shop towels as well, and has a little ledge that has become our dumping ground. Its perfect because its small (which means Im forced to deal with it regularly), it has a ledge all around so small things dont fall off, and its right next to the door so I can toss things in it without even stepping foot in the garage.

So far these two little shelves alone have made a world of difference in things feeling more organized in here. Dont you love it when a big problem is solved by something so tiny and easy?!

I also got our wood glue organized with a wood glue caddy (linked below) and it genuinely makes a world of difference. Wood glue is another thing that is always getting moved around and lost, and I love that we have this little storage system for all of our glue, our brushes, and everything else so that we can move it around as we need to without losing anything.

The lesson here? Get specific! If you have a problem with something always getting moved around or lost, look for solutions for that specific thing and make a new home for it.

Shelving Options

Heres the shelf I have above the workbench.

Heres the shelf I have hanging on the side that also holds shop towels.

This is the wood glue caddy that Im obsessed with and as a bonus, heres the silicone glue holder Im really loving right now too.

This utility caddy is a great option for things like your tape measure, scissors, and pencils.

And this magnetic parts tray is a life-saver when youre working on a project with a lot of screws or switching bits a lot. I keep it on the big workbench and we use it all the time!

See more specific organization trays and caddies here!

4. Plugs and chargers. EVERYWHERE.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret. It is impossible (I mean IMPOSSIBLE) to have too many plugs or chargers in your workshop.

It cant be done.

If you have corded tools, youll want plenty of room to plug them in. If you have battery-powered tools like we do, youll want aaaaaall of the battery charging stations. Which means outlets, outlets, and more outlets!

In our last house we only had two (TWO!) pairs of outlets in our garage and it was just a giant pain all the time. This garage is starting off with notably more than that I havent counted but I know its more than two and were also adding more via some really awesome power strips to make things as functional as possible.

This small workbench near the door is a great landing area for assembly, staining things, or just about anything else (I havent had a chance to use it yet so I dont know what Ill do for sure yet!) and we added this really fancy power strip above it to make it even better. In addition to adding some extra space to plug things in, it has a few USB ports so I can charge my phone (and even rest it on the little built-in phone ledge) so it doesnt die while I listen to my 12th consecutive crime-related podcast. Its also got two powerful lights that will be so helpful on the (near constant) occasion that were working out here long past the sun has gone down.

Long story short? You need extra outlets may as well also get a phone stand and some lights while youre at it, no?

Power strips

Heres the awesome power station we have we are loving it so far and cant recommend it enough!

Weve also used these shop lights in the past to add some extra light to dark corners they make a world of difference.

This cord reel is such a nice way to have a built-in extension cord that stays out of the way.

5. Make it cute.

And finally, perhaps the most important tip of all.

You think Im kidding, but Im so, so serious.

Im not sure if this is true for you, but I find Im about 95% more likely to keep a space looking organized and clean if I love how it looks. A junky garage will always be a junky garage and theres no point in really keeping it organized because its ugly already you cant make it worse!

Theres something magical that happens when I make a space look great that makes me so motivated to keep it looking great.

I have every intention of doing more projects like this on the other walls of my garage, but I kicked things off by adding this simple board and batten treatment to this back wall and painting it a color that makes me smile. It just took me a few hours over two days to install it and paint the whole thing, and now this entire space feels so much better. In fact, the whole garage feels better because of just this one side!

I also took the time to re-paint the metal cabinets we use under the smaller workbench, and I stained the workbench top and cut it down to fit better. Little touches like this look so great and make me feel so much better when Im in the space.

It sounds silly, but give it a shot I promise youll be surprised at how effective it is at motivating you to keep it clean!

If you want to see how this project unfolded, click here to watch my Instagram story highlights for the project!

I hope this post was helpful for you and Im so grateful for all of your excitement about this space. Your enthusiasm and encouragement made it way more tolerable to knock it out, and gets me pumped to get started on the next section!

Id love to hear your tips for organizing your workspace too anything amazing that I missed?!

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