I think you had better adjust them so that they never come close to each other. This is how they are organized in my mower.
That deck in your picture looks like it has very high lift blades. It also looks like you don't have many hrs on the deck when the picture was taken. Have you had a chance to run it in higher than normal cutting situation. I'm interested because when mowing 5 or 6" high a lot of blades do not have the lift to pull the grass back up after runing over it with the front wheels in a higher than normal cutting situation.
HOW DO I TIME MY MOWER BLADES?
Not so much the start stop as it is pulley and load variances multiplied by many revolutions per second. Without teeth on the pulleys and belt the "timing" will wander quite quickly. Yould have to "time" them every couple minutes. Best to not fret and just let it do its thing.I try to place mine (3 blades) so the blades are: 1) north to south, 2) east to west, and 3) north to south)
BUT since I MMM is belt driven when you start/stop the pulleys will shift.. So they dont end up being in the same positions as when i started..
Brian