Worklife Balance for the Maker-Owner - Part 4 Production

Worklife Balance for the Maker-Owner - Part 4 Production
Part four in a series directed at helping other maker-owners balance their worklife- minimal stress progression in all the areas of what it takes to make things for a living. Production "What you do for a living is not 'be creative' what you do for a living is 'ship." Seth Godin "Quantity is just as important as quality"- Bob Taylor One of my musician friends was talking about a song he was about to play from a stage and he said it was about a friend of his, "a creative and a productive".  I've thought a lot about that.  We hear a lot about 'creatives'.  I think there are avenues in life where creatives can be successful simply by creating novel ideas. But not you and I. You and I make stuff.  We aren't painters where you have to be able to paint and also come up with new ideas every time, we aren't in a board room running a company. We make guitars, hats, jewelry, tools- and that's it.  Sure they have different options (more on that later) but it's always the same object.  That means the better and faster we get at making it the more time we have to attend to areas of this life-whether it be worklife or life after work. Efficient production means breathing room.  Makers sometimes bristle at the word, 'production', because it seems in opposition of the idea of handmade. Stop it.   That's an assumption that's killing your business and your life.  Production doesn't mean buying a CNC machine and incorporating.  If you spend some time learning about flow, processes, and looking with a constantly critical eye at how you do your work, your work will be better and you will get it done faster.  You can use that time however you please. TIME IS THE MOST VALUABLE THING EVER IN THE WORLD.  There is nothing that can buy you time, except for taking less time to do exactly the same work you're currently doing. What is production? For purpose it's this: Amount of time spent between someone paying you money and you shipping it. I'm not going to be able to tell you how to do your particular thing faster but here are the thoughts I've developed on the subject. Flow The biggest thing you can do to improve production is improve flow. What's flow? Read this book: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Honestly.  You're costing yourself life by not reading it.  Flow is 'the zone'. You forget to eat lunch because you're working.  You're not distracted, things are just happening. That's flow.  Almost every idea that follows affects that mental state somehow.  Efficient production preserves the flow.  You're ability to get into a flow state of mind affects your business's finances, craftsmanship, and efficiency,  which in turn affects your non -work life.  Get it together. Have a system.  Here's mine, at least for the time being. It's taped on my wall.  I check it every morning against my Wunderlist.  THe schedule on my wall is production stuff that must be done.  It is my bread and better. There are only three or four things everyday.  I can get it done, except for Monday, in about 4-6 hours.  Then I look at my wunderlist to see where the incidental stuff can fit in.  Here's the thing: I check it EVERY morning. I have made it my boss.  I can alter it if I see changes that need to be made. But I don't make those decisions on the fly. If you do, you miss the big picture.  That's the root of the "it feels like I didn't get anything done" days. Distractions kill flow. Don't check your phone. Don't check your e-mail. When you realize you have to order something write it on your phone and go back to work.  It's a battle.  Go into it with that mindset and you'll start recognizing all the things that are distracting you. Delegate your day When I arrive in the morning the first thing I do is get right to making stuff.  I don't respond to emails, I dont write a blog post, I don't order things even if I need them. I get to work.  It's why I have this business.  If I know when I get up that when I walk in I can start carving a neck, it's a little gift to myself.  When I get that core schedule done then I can do the other stuff. I earn that time.  Save the non production stuff for the end of the day. You get that 'end of the day' time when your production is nailed down enough - you don't have to make too much, you aren't making too little. It doesn't take too long, or too short. You have enough production work to fill your day. I think the hard thing about being a maker-owner is that it's all connected. You can't start making more stuff without having to keep better track of ordering stuff, having more money to track in and out, and more people you have to get your stuff in front of. Don't Batch Build You aren't more efficient when making 10 things at once compared to one.  The set up time does not hurt you more than the act of building in large batches. If you're set up time sucks that bad, fix it. That's the problem. You can't fix bad set up with building in large batches.  I have 8 routers with different bits. Four dremel tools.  A crazy amount of templates. I never measure. Oh I know the feeling. I worked in factories and there was a certain amount of satisfaction with seeing an entire warehouse wall full of engine blocks and at the end of the day the wall was empty. When I worked at Huss and Dalton as a youthful enthusiast I would pride myself by making 50 x braces at a time.  But here's the thing. It's not any faster and it's a waste.  Lets say you build 10 guitar bodies at once.  First, how excited are you about bending the 10th set of sides after dealing with issues from the previous 10? Zero excited.  You put all of that time (your most valuable asset) into building those bodies and now they are all going to sit there waiting until you carve, set, sand and finish 10 necks? And deal with mistakes x10? It's a waste.  It's time and money just sitting on a shelf. And it's no fun.  You might think the flow is better because you bind, and then bind, and then bind... but that's not flow. Flow is getting somewhere.  Flow is going from the thing that needs to be done now seamlessly into the thing that needs to be done next.   I tried the batch building thing when I started again with these resonators and all that piled up were bodies that had no owners.  A pile of mistakes that aggravated me. Bob Taylor talks about it in his book "Guitar Lessons". I'm paraphrasing here but Bob called lean manufacturing (doing things just-in-time) the biggest improvement he made.  When they were struggling in the beginning, he noticed that they had no money but a whole building full of guitars that needed to be fixed or sold.  See the issue? Those guitars need to be done NOW. Do the thing that needs to be done now, the thing that gets you closest to shipping. Ship, then begin again. Limit choices Decision fatigue. I have 20 of the same t shirts. They are Next Level Triblend. I wake up put on a shirt.  I like ice cream. If someone says, " I have ice cream, you want some?" I say "yes". I eat it and am happy.  If that person came and said "I have chocolate fudge ice cream, sherbet, raspberry, french vanilla or vanilla bean,"I say, "uhhhhh". Your customers are doing the same thing.  Chances are they love what you do, which is why they are talking to you.  But now they want to know the difference between the three types of blue dyes you have, the sound difference between this nut material or that nut material etc.  It's indescribable.  And most times it doesn't matter. It's chocolate or vanilla.  You're the professional. You have played more of these guitars than anyone in the world, you have seen more of your hats than anyone. Don't fall into the 'custom everything' trap.  It wrecks your production, and it doesn't matter your customers proportionally happier.  You know what options you need. Be the decider. Limiting is a huge deal.  That fifth blue dye you're trying isn't productive. It's creating problems.  When I started offering tri-cones I started getting really satisfied customer e-mails that ended with something like, "maybe next time I'll try a tricone!"  There's a bit of dissatisfaction with that fear of missing out isn't there? Maybe your customer can only afford one, but really loves the blue and the red.  They buy the blue, but there is a part of them that still loves the red.  YOU did that. Not them. The short of it:
  1. Flow - Read Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. You need to set up your production so that you can get into flow daily.  Eliminate distraction.  Observe the time inbetween steps, work on improving that.
  2. Don't Batch Build-  Having excess work that is semi-done sitting around is waste.  Get stuff completed. Now.
  3. Delegate your Day - Have a system so you can go into each part of your day with purpose.
  4. Limit options - Be the professional. You know what is best or what you want to do.  Don't think you're gaining an advantage by drowning your customers with decisions.
 

 
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