Grounds and Pots

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This just struck me (as I'm sitting here admiring the gut shots of pedals and how elegantly some of you guys can put these things together).

Some pots in schematics show #3 attached to part of the circuit, then #1 and #2 both attached to ground.  I soldered wires to all three leads, but then I realized that if both #1 and #2 are going to ground, then they could be just jumpered together. 

That's correct isn't it?  I could just wire #3 and #1, and jumper #1 and #2 together.  While I'm at it, two pots next to each other should just have their grounds jumpered to each other and only one wire from the combined pots to the ground. 

[defaced]

Yes, you can just jumper from 1 to 2 on the pot lugs themselves. 

I would not advise taking ground from one pot to another unless it is a very simple circuit, say like a one/two transistor boost/fuzz sort of deal.  This gets into ground schemes and other such topics.  You might be able to do it most of the time, but there can and probably will be times when it'll bite you and you'll end up mixing ground connections that should be separate.  If you want to read more on grounding in a general sense, I recommend the first chapter of Tim William's Circuit Designer's Handbook.  Between Amazon's book preview and Google books, you can read most if not all of it for free.  If you like his style and want to go further down the rabbit hole, it's worth buying IMO. 

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Thanks Mike. 

I started this rabbit hole a couple of months ago looking at amplifier options; there's no end in sight yet.

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If you are doing this for an amp, I suggest reading Merlin's (Valve Wizard) PDF on grounding in tube amps in addition to the Tim Williams section.  His PDF going more into power supply vs signal loops and such. 

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This is Taylor's Tiny Giant solid state amp.