Works gone crazy- how do you manage your time

[Jasper McEwan]

Like you say a great problem to have :thumbsup: – but it’s always a challenge to manage it all.

When multi-tasking to the extreme prioritisation is pretty key. A couple of ways we do that are as follows:

– We’re a Trade only sign & print supplier, so we have to be very quick at turning around quotes (usually minutes), if a particular week/day it goes over the top, we start asking how soon they would like their quote back.

– Likewise with orders, for our trade print & trade manufacturing services as a rule of thumb we say 3 working days for things like flat cut letters, polished acrylic panels, laminated print etc.

If 25% of your customers don’t actually need their quote or their order as quickly as usual then it really helps to ride the storm and saves quite a bit of stress.

Our quoting team also find early mornings a great time to get quotes done, they will be in soon after 6am and it enables them to get on top before they start flooding in again 🙂

In terms of a system, I’m a massive fan of trello. This is a free kanban system which can be used individually or as a team. Might be worth a look – https://trello.com/

Hope this helps

[KevinGaffney]

Sounds very like us a couple of years back. Upgraded our printer to one we could trust to print through the night unattended and the big one was installing a flatbed applicator. We’ve also a small crew but have more than doubled our production capabilities. Also sub out any time consuming installation work so our machinery is always working

[David Mitchell]

I felt like this through the autumn/winter. At the end of the day you can only do so much, I’m a one man band and I’m split 60/40 with more embroidery and printing now, I try my best to keep on top of things but there’s only so much you can do,

Someone told me "always remember you don’t need to do every job" sounds mental but i then realised I was in the habit of saying yes to every enquiry putting myself under crazy pressure,

Also everyone likes to advise, take on staff and grow, what is so wrong with staying small?

[Chris Wilson]

We changed our opening times.

We are 10am – 6pm.
This gives me 2.. something’s 3 hours in the morning of peace. Amazing how much you can get through.

We do get the odd comment from the suited ****** that think your lazy. But they soon get told.

[David Hammond]

Two of us here, we open Monday – Friday 8-4, mainly to avoid traffic on the commute.

I only "work" weekends/evenings for two reasons.

1) The customer is paying me enough to make it worth while.
2) It makes my life easier. I sometimes pop in on a weekend and can get a whole sign cut & laid up within a couple of hours without mither, then it’s just a case of popping out fitting it.

That said I take the laptop home and I can do the VAT & accounts from the comfort of my living room.

Wasted hours, and time is a killer, especially for smaller companies so we have a few basic rules.

We don’t book any jobs in for installation until they’ve approved the artwork. Lead times are always from THEIR approval.

We’ve probably all had it where the customer ask’s to have their van done on Friday, but doesn’t approve the artwork until Thursday afternoon, and you’re then rushing around, or worse still it doesn’t get approved and you’ve lost a day.

Similarly we take a minimum 50% deposit, nothing is ordered or produced, at least it covers the materials and time.

Everything goes into Google Calendar, it’s displayed on a large monitor on the office wall, it’s accessible to both our phones, we know what we’re doing and when.

We’ve a flow chart of our workflow on the wall, it gets revised when we find flaws in it, the aim is to cover our backsides to make sure we’re not wasting time, effort and money, whilst also increasing the service we can provide to genuine customers who are paying our wages. :thumbsup:

[Martyn Heath]

Thanks for all the info and ideas guys.

Today i wrote out a calender schedule for the next 3 weeks which has got everything out of my head that ive been spending 24hrs a day going over. Anything that comes in nxt week is looking at a 3-4 week or so turnaround. Hopefully people understand this.
Its a strange one, ive always based my business on price, quality, and quick turnaround (yes all 3 can be done 😉 ) mainly because im small and not crazy busy. These turnaround times may not suit everyone but hay what can you do.

Anyway im sure this is just a blip and in a few months will be wondering why im back to old steady eddie again.

[Myles Brewer]

Hi Martyn, I’m was in the exact same situation about a year or more ago.
One man band (wife helps out fitting on occasion if 2 pairs of hands required!! [emoji16] ) Been trading 15 years & steadily growing by word of mouth. Weathered the recession over the last few years & really since beginning of 2017 have been so busy I’ve been having to regularly either turn work away or at least tell people there is a waiting period.
It’s funny actually how many supposedly urgent jobs turn out to be not so urgent when you say you honestly can’t do them in the expected time scale!!
I"m still working 6 days & frequently doing 9am till 8pm (sometimes going back after midnight to do accounting, designs, quotes when it’s quiet & undisturbed time!)
I also told myself it was probably just a blip but it’s never let up yet!!
I haven’t really found a way to ease the problem to be honest other than just trying to be honest about the waiting time right from 1st contact. If they are happy to wait then fine, otherwise, I’m sorry I just can’t do it.
Plus there’s the added advantage of having the luxury to let the jobs go that you really don’t want!![emoji16]
It’s also surprising how on occasion when either the need arises or you’re just completely knackered! & you take an extra day off, that the world doesn’t actually end, all the work is still there when you come back & nobody actually notices!! [emoji16] [emoji106]