A tool sign-out sheet you can print and hang by the shed door

Six things, and each one settles a question that otherwise becomes a text message. The tool, named so nobody confuses the two ladders. Who has it. The date it went out. The date it is due back, written by the borrower at the moment they take it. The date it really came back. And the state it came back in, even when that is one word. The due date is the column most homemade sheets leave off, and it is the one that matters, because without it nothing is ever late and nobody can be asked.

On a clipboard at the door the tools leave through, with a pen tied to it. A sheet in a drawer or in one person's kitchen gets filled in from memory a week later, which is the same as not having one. If the tools are spread across several garages there is no single door, and paper stops working: nobody can see the sheet without walking over. That is the point where a shared calendar does the job better than a clipboard.

There is no file to download. The print button opens your browser's print dialog, and choosing Save as PDF there gives you a PDF of both pages. If you would rather keep it in a spreadsheet, type the six column headings from the sheet above across the first row, freeze that row, and add a line each time something goes out. A spreadsheet is easier to search and a clipboard is harder to forget; pick whichever your group will really use.

Long enough for one job. For most shared tools that means a day or a weekend, and the borrower writes the due date themselves when they sign it out. A pressure washer or a ladder is a one-day tool. A tile saw is a one-week tool, because a bathroom takes a week. Agree the longest loan for each tool once and write it in the last column of the inventory sheet, so the limit is the group's rule and not one neighbor's opinion.

A small one can. It was laid out for neighbors and friends who know each other, so it has no signature line, no employee or badge number, no serial number column and nowhere to record calibration or inspection dates. A tool crib that has to show who was accountable for an item, or a unit that needs a signed hand receipt, should use its own form. For a shared shed, a community garden or a three-person crew, the six columns here are enough.

When people start wanting next Saturday. A sign-out sheet records what has already left the shed, and it has no way to hold a day in advance or to stop one household taking the pressure washer every dry weekend in April. That is a booking problem. AllDibs gives each tool a calendar, turns away a booking that overlaps another, and gives every household a small budget of weekend days that comes back once the day has passed. The first 5 tools cost nothing. Plenty of groups keep both: the calendar for who gets it next, the sheet for what state it came back in.