If you are anything like me and spend quite a bit of time on a Unixy CLI like Ubuntu or OS X, the you might find this of some use.
I tend to have a lot of programs and scripts I write or compile outside the package management of the OS so /usr/local/bin and ~/,bin tend to get quite crowded on my machines. Here is a little snip that you can add to your ~/.bashrc or as I like to do add it system wide to my /etc/profile that will allow you to easily put those scripts and programs in subdirectories of /usr/local/bin or ~/.bin and still magically be in your path.
PATH="~/.bin:$(find ~/.bin -type d -d 1|tr "\n" ":" |sed 's#:$##'):/usr/local/bin:$(find /usr/local/bin -type d -d 1|tr "\n" ":" |sed 's#:$##'):/usr/local/sbin:"$PATH export PATH
Add that, close your terminal and reopen it ( or source the file ) and then "echo $PATH" in the new terminal to make sure everything looks as you'd expect.
My Bash-foo isn't the best so additions/corrections/suggestions and flames welcome , also this has only been tested on one of my OSX and Ubuntu machines, so use with caution, I cant see it doing permeant damage in any way but ya never know, it may eat kittahs for breakfast, you've been warned.