[stinos]

funny I've gone through the fridge sample myself. However I choose the path in between the two solutions: yes just flowing and tertris'ing your stuff definitely costs less time, but I soon discovered it would drive me mad after a while because I couldn't find things quickly. Not because they were unreachable, but becasue they were in a different place every week or so. Which is hard if like me, the autistic side of your brain likes to have things always in the same place just because that way of organising undeniably gives you the fastest way to get something back. So now I still go with the tetris way, but to make it more convenient afterwards (and to make the game more interesting, lol) there are now categories.

Anyway long story short: you are 100% right and the OP's story is a fine read but too general. Which is often the case on the net.

[olliesaunders]

Which is hard if like me, the autistic side of your brain likes to have things always in the same place just because that way of organising undeniably gives you the fastest way to get something back.

To which I would ask: are you doing that out of a need to have control and order or because you really think it is a worthwhile use of your time?

I’m not too dogmatic about it though. Sometimes it just feels good to get everything nice and organized. And I think it’s also important to feel comfortable. The time to question these things is when you think it is a bottleneck in your overall performance. Any person dedicated to being a great programmer should seldom worry about how they are packing the fridge unless its affecting their ability to program, for example.

[stinos]

"are you doing that out of a need to have control and order or because you really think it is a worthwhile use of your time?" both actually. For example I also do some woodworking, bicycle maintenance etc, requiring a bunch of tools. When starting some work I really like that I can think of any tool and just pick it up without having to look for it, could even say it makes me happy, while at the same time not finding something can seriously get on my nerves. At the same time, sometimes when putting back all tools after some job, I really think "ha, this may take some time now, but it will be worth it next time". Does all this affect my life? Not really since I'm used to it and it takes only a fraction of time/thinking in comparision with the rest of it.