Many techinques, three general approaches..

In all the guides and articles and videos the author has watched, this was never spelled out precisely: A huge portion of your time and effort will be moving you and your tools from the toolchest to under the car and back. Here are three general approaches to doing this.

• 1. One at a time slide on your back.
  This is my personal preference but it requires a clean, smooth floor and clothing that will slide easily. (Like a lab coat shop coat.) Literally one at a time choose the tool you will need, slide under the vehicle, release the fastener(s). Get the wrong fitting? Slide back out, stand up, get the right one, crouch down and slide back in. Need a different tool? Yep, slide out, stand up, grab the tool, crouch down and slide back in. For overall efficiency it is comparable to the other two approaches, especially in a space constrained environment like a home garage.
• 2. Deploy all the tools you'll need.
  Select and layout all the tools for the job where you can reach them without getting up from under the vehicle. You'd think this would be the most efficient approach, but you're going to struggle to turn your body to reach them, you won't be able to see them correctly, and you'll almost invariably forget something you actually need anyways. Then you'll need to put the pile away once the job is 'done', which it almost never is.
• 3. Hybrid approach
  Get a separate tool chest that is smaller that you can put all the tools (and all the ones you don't think you'll need) in. Then add some mobility to your movement with a creeper.

The reality is many of the repairs you will be performing will have simultaneous stand up and underneath components. You'll need to loosen one bolt standing up, and one bolt laying on your back, then another from the side where you crouch in the wheel well. It's not like the movies where you're just on the creeper the whole afternoon. It's also not like what you see in the pro-shops where the vehicle is up on a lift and they walk under it.

This guide is designed to help you have fun working on cars. The simple hands on-approach of tool fetch, tool use, and tool storage can be a meditative component and will allow you to turn off the brain yet still learn how to work faster. Putting the tool back each time may feel like more work, it's actually overall more efficient.