Woodworking Network: As an aspiring young wood professional, it is fair to assume that most days you’re just going to get up and go to work. Once you get to work, you’ll probably just … work. However, like workpieces, life sometimes can throw a curveball at you on any given day. What seems to be as simple as getting up and going to work can often not be as simple as we plan.
4 comments:
I strongly agree with the suggestions and proposals in this article, as proper time management both for yourself and for your business is a key factor to improving oneself in those domains while also improving quality of life. I’d like to expand on this by broadening the advice (or potentially just reframing it) to instead promote that one should first attempt to understand what will work best for them to promote their own efficiencies and workflow in order to them delve into the world of time management. It is best to know how you use your time best before you begin to carve out sections of it to do that work. For example, in the article, he describes having dedicated office time on Mondays and Friday afternoons, which is what works for him - but alternatively, it might be better for one to have an hour or two set aside every morning to tend to office work before beginning the wood working labor for that day. Ultimately, while good time management is highly important, it is also important to reflect on how one uses their time and then use that knowledge to best inform what to do with it.
I really like how in this article, the basis for why good time management is important is so you can spend time with those you love. In a career like ours, with some strange hours, it is so important to make sure that you manage your time well, so that you are able to maintain good relationships. I really liked how he also separated time out for his sitting work and for his more physical work on the shop floor. I think that this lets you get into the flow of the things, allowing you to work faster and more efficiently. I also think that putting the office work at the very start and end of the week is good timing as it allows time for parts to come in. Planning ahead is also important, like doing any gluing at the start of the day, so that pieces have time to dry and you can work with them in the afternoon.
I always enjoy reading articles about time management skills because I think it is somewhere I can always improve in and it is interesting to see new perspectives and methods. While I agree that time is the villain and with my current schedule I am really feeling that, in the end, there are a lot of hours in the day and if allocated properly can do unimaginable things. I agree that one should start their plans with organizing their priorities and deciding the critical path to success. That is something I often do even on little things like having 4 giant projects due in a week. Creating that pathway to understand what I can do that is short between the bigger things switching topics giving my brain a rest from that specific area. Something I struggle with is making time for friends and family because I do keep my schedule insanely busy. I also have a tendency to get lost in my work and find making plans stressful. A spontaneous conversation is much more appealing to me than planning something in the insanity. I am someone who likes to have my following week schedule finalized by the Friday (at the latest) before the week hits so I know how to allocate my time properly. When someone plops in my calendar that is very stressful but I realize that most people do not plan that far ahead and is something I need to work on.
I love when Matt Buell says “There is no more important client than the one whose workpiece is currently sitting on my workbench… It means that I have respect for the clients I already have and make time for prospective clients within my pre-planned scheduled times”. As a young designer, ANY opportunity I find to work can be exciting. It can be tempting to say yes to every new opportunity that comes along, but it’s important to remember the obligation you have to the work you’re ALREADY doing. Sophomore year, I was designing for a small production of Annie when I was given the opportunity to assistant design at another local school. I accepted the job, and as a result, my quality of work at both Annie and the new show fell drastically. Buell makes a really good point about honoring the work we already have. Working past your maximum output will only hurt you in the long run, and it’s better to deliver work you are proud of on a single project then low-quality work on multiple.
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