Time Management: Shop work and tuning appointments.

[Farrell]

Phil, I find my schedule very similar to Mark's, except I'm up to scheduling three days in the shop and two out on service calls. And I do work most evenings past 5 pm. And I work most Saturdays (at least a few hours). And I work most Sundays (at least a few hours).

I find that most things I am doing in the shop are more efficient when you have long blocks of uninterrupted time to spend. Perhaps something like action work would lend itself to shorter blocks. I just find that I really don't "get in the groove" with an hour or two here and there. When I do spend an hour or two in the shop after a day of service calls, I usually just do menial tasks like cleaning up, organizing, etc.

If you are going to be doing refinishing in your new shop that is the lower level of your home I strongly suggest that you educate yourself on the topic of dust collection. A web site I found to be very useful is:  http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/Index.cfm

Terry Farrell
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  I have had my shop here on my property for the past 14 years.  It is FAR more efficient than the "shop away from home", at least for me.  While there is no "set" schedule for me, I generally book 2 full days/week for being in the shop, and tune the other 3.  This has the benefit of weeding out your less desirable tuning clientele, and gives your body a break from the physical demands of tuning.  As you include refinishing I think you will find that a couple hours here, a couple hours there in the shop is not conducive to that kind of work, for the most part.  I am an early riser, too, and will commonly slip in some shop time in the early mornings before making the tuning rounds, and also late afternoons upon arriving home, if time allows.  You are right on target, though, about the pitfalls of a home shop regarding the potential for stealing time from your family.  I make a point of not wor! king past 5pm, reserving the evenings for time with my wife and son.  It has worked very well for me.

  Mark Potter  

  Phil Bondi <phil at philbondi.com> wrote:
    Hi all.

    I'll try to be as thorough as possible for my situation:

    My business is reaching a point where I need to make a decision on how 
    to handle the increased shop work and keep my stable of tuning clients. 
    The question is:

    For those of you, like myself, who work alone, how do you handle your 
    time for the shop and the tuning clients?

    SNIP
    -Phil Bondi(Fl)



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20060330/86a79af3/attachment.html