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Discussion How do you stay organized?

rydods

rydods

Member for quite some time.
We are a small 3 employee business plus me and setup attached to my home. We use a mixture of dashboard time clock (3 employees free), trello and Estimate. I personally use wunderlist for all of my daily "to-dos" personal and business and I recommend it to my employees to keep organized. Trello and wunderlist are free but I'm looking into the benefits of the business class trello. It has a lot of cool features and "power-ups" that are really useful.

Estimate is monthly and we have 3 seats for everyone to enter and setup jobs so things can be quickly exported to quickbooks. Once or twice a year I look into a software program that does all of this in one. I try the free trial and my head spins. Most programs seem to require a full time person just to run it. I like to have access to everything everywhere. I had a bookkeeper who recently retired and I'm amazed at how easy it was to consolidate everything she did and split up her duties to myself and one other employee.
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
WhiskeyDreamer said:
For both business and personal, I use a planner. The weekly schedule is on the left and there's writing space on the right. I use the writing space for vendors and outsourcing notes. A full yearly calendar at the front where I mark deadlines and other dates. Notes section in the back for working on goals.

In addition to that, I would suggest you start setting a timer when you're working on a specific task. If it should only take you thirty minutes, set a timer. Stop when the timer goes off. Most of the time we can gain back lost time simply by forcing ourselves to do the tasks at hand and not get sidetracked on something else. You know, like Signs101.
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Timer is good. When I was running a busy shop my head would be everywhere and I would have NO time to think between the hours of 8am -5pm... and only after everyone was closed would I remember something I had to do.. I set alarms during the day to "STOP" and review my checklist and make sure time wasn't slipping away on something that needed to be done.

I'm much happier, organised and on top of EVERYTHING now that I'm running a one-man show from home... I do not miss those crazy days.
 
kcollinsdesign

kcollinsdesign

Old member
I keep a pocket notebook and pen on me. New prospects and new jobs get a manilla folder and put into a tickle file for further sales action or production. Digital files go into a simple directory based file system by customer/job. I use Quickbooks for estimates and invoices (and other tax and bookkeeping functions). Billed jobs go into an accounts receivable file, and when paid go into one of several file cabinets sorted by customer name. I use an iPhone and Mac computers for contacts, calendars and email. Really very simple and logical, and takes no time. I can understand why a large shop might benefit from a digital work-flow solution, but for under twenty or so employees this hybrid computer and old-fashioned paper and pencil system works just fine, and saves a ton of time!
 
rjssigns

rjssigns

Active Member
One man operation so I only take on what I can get done in a timely manner. At a previous job I learned what happens when you constantly overbook available resources.

I keep track of jobs with a dry erase board, PO's, and texts. Last one is somewhat new to me and works well.
 
Stacey K

Stacey K

I like making signs
I've changed my system 3 times this year LOL - I anticipate keeping this last system as it's working out well. Job boxes placed on narrow shelves with pink sticky To Do notes on them for items to order or to do. I can easily move them from one shelf to another as the job progresses and re-order them in order of importance. Ask again in 6 months and I'm sure I will be doing something different LOL
 
decalman

decalman

New Member
I'm well organized.
When something is called for, my first inclination us to panic. Then I do ~ panic.
I frantically dig under clumps of chaos, always to no avail.
Here's my office.

:mad:

0messy-desk.jpg
 
Robert Armerding

Robert Armerding

Listen Sharp
I am very new to Signs101. I am a merchant member. After 40 years in the sign-making industry, I want to make myself available to help other sign makers grow their business. I have found great ideas reading recently published business books. Which brings me to this reply to your question.
Have any of you read "The Getting Things Done Workbook: 10 Moves to Stress-free Productivity." by David Allen and Brandon Hall. I and several of my sign shop clients have gone through it, begun to implement the ideas and found it to be quite rewarding.
AllenBook

AllenBook

David Allen's new book
 
Last edited by a moderator:
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
Sign Shop Mentor said:
I am very new to Signs101. I am a merchant member. After 40 years in the sign-making industry, I want to make myself available to help other sign makers grow their business. I have found great ideas reading recently published business books. Which brings me to this reply to your question.
Have any of you read "The Getting Things Done Workbook: 10 Moves to Stress-free Productivity." by David Allen and Brandon Hall. I and several of my sign shop clients have gone through it, begun to implement the ideas and found it to be quite rewarding.
AllenBook

AllenBook

David Allen's new book
Click to expand...

Thanks Robert, haven't read this one but will check it out!
 
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
MGB_LE said:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kcdak1oucpd7a1f/Leader Standard Work_Page_2.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/horuawsl2dns4b1/Leader Standard Work_Page_1.jpg?dl=0

Leader Standard Work (a part of LEAN) helps guide my days, and record them, too. In the center I write down my fires to deal with, apart from my daily to-dos.
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I know this is a late reply to my old thread, but do you mind re-sharing those files? I'd love to check them out.

I feel like we're/I'm still in the same boat as I was 3 years ago when I started this thread, still looking for ways to improve.
 
Lux

Lux

New Member
Big fan of Smartsheet. I use Smartsheet web forms to enter data and use rules to color code media types. This makes it easier to figure out how to gang up jobs by material type within a deadline. Smartsheet writes deadlines to a google calendar, but I probably should just figure out how to only use the smartsheet calendar. The biggest failure for management is not completely entering job data as it come in. I am a small shop with repeat customers so it is easy to not always collect full job data because of the level of familiarity with clients. This always costs twice or three times as much time in the end. I also like to send jobs to appropriate folders for the next day's production. And it is not underrated but good clean up at the end of the day makes the next day more efficient. Would be curious about how you use Smartsheet.
 
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
Carl Saytor said:
Big fan of Smartsheet. I use Smartsheet web forms to enter data and use rules to color code media types. This makes it easier to figure out how to gang up jobs by material type within a deadline. Smartsheet writes deadlines to a google calendar, but I probably should just figure out how to only use the smartsheet calendar. The biggest failure for management is not completely entering job data as it come in. I am a small shop with repeat customers so it is easy to not always collect full job data because of the level of familiarity with clients. This always costs twice or three times as much time in the end. I also like to send jobs to appropriate folders for the next day's production. And it is not underrated but good clean up at the end of the day makes the next day more efficient. Would be curious about how you use Smartsheet.
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Sounds like you've got some great systems in place and are taking advantage of Smartsheet's automation features! I definitely agree that it all falls apart when all key data isn't entered - just like any system everyone needs to complete all the steps. That's a great idea to color code your jobs by material so they can be ganged together, that's something I always try to do but have to manually go through each order and batch together as I see fit. Not always ideal or efficient.

We're really not using Smartsheet to do anything fancy - we mostly use it for our Job Board (All current jobs w/ status and contact/due date info) and Production Schedule.

I'm actually planning on cancelling our subscription soon as we're migrating over to a new MIS workflow. (Printlogic - would highly recommend checking them out. Their support and onboarding is amazing and price point is right for us)
 
R

RabidOne

New Member
SouthEastMIsigns said:
We use an online software called Trello to track our jobs. Each job gets a card that moves through various boards (estimating, sales, design, pre-press, production, etc) You can color code each card based on the type of project (cut vinyl, digi print, laser engrave/cut, screen printing, embroidery, etc.) and you can add multiple colors. You can assign and remove different employees to the cards as the projects progress. It's very simple and intuitive and they have a great mobile app, so I can monitor or make changes in the field. It has a ton of other features, but these are the basics. It's been a great tool for us.
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I have used Trello and it was really useful.
In another shop we had a Google sheet as our schedule with each part a column and what has to happen. Pretty simple as you just entered the "card" and what needed to happen to the job to complete and when it was needed for.
Whitehaus your shop might be too small for the effort involved in that kind of schedule.
 
G

Gary1

New Member
White Haus said:
One of my main goals this year is to use my time more efficiently every day. We all know how quickly a 12 hour day can disappear when you're wearing 6 hats and bouncing back and forth between interruptions and putting fires out.

I know there is tons of info online about time management etc - I'm more interested in having a conversation with people in the industry as I'm sure we all experience some of the same challenges. From dealing with quotes, new orders, inventory, running equipment, quality control, sales, customer service etc - there are a lot to bases to cover especially when you're a smaller company and don't have team members for each position.

How do you keep your day organized and chaos-free? Do you have any tricks/systems/apps/etc that you couldn't live without when it comes to running your business? What is working for you right now and what would you like to improve on?

Things that work for us so far:

-Morning review (Ideally the production schedule should already be mapped out from the day before)
-Weekly review (Plan the week and come up with a realistic idea of what we're looking at)
-Smartsheet software (We use this for our job board, production schedule, misc spreadsheets)
-Creating & documenting systems for everything we do (This is, and will continue to be, a work in progress - but is one of the most important steps)
-Outsource when possible (Vector Doctor, designers for more complicated projects, 4over, local installers etc)

Areas where we can improve:

-Turning down projects that aren't a good fit (this is hard, but getting easier)
-Prioritizing requests - Quotes/New Orders (most of the time it's the customer that yells the loudest and is the biggest pain in the a$$ that gets served fastest - that part needs to change)
-Dedicating at least 1-2 hours a day where I'm "unavailable" to work on business development and new business

I'm sure there are more but I thought I'd get the ball rolling with a few ideas. We've definitely come a long way of the last couple years but still have a long way to go before the company is truly a well oiled-machine.

Hopefully we can get a conversation going and share some valuable information for all.

Thanks in advance for any contributions to the discussion.

Cheers,

Pat
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I use Sign Tracker. Been using it for a couple of years now and love it that things are in order now. Can easily re-organize jobs, make quotes. Now the jobs are out of my head! Company is based out of Texas. Excellent tech support too! Family orientated business.
 
ADVANCED DISPLAY

ADVANCED DISPLAY

ADVANCED DISPLAY
I'm watching this thread closely, very interested in how different shops get this accomplished. I have a full time manager, my mad scientist who's very good. We both have bad habits of grading a notepad taking pertinent on the phone or walk in and misplacing it. It's unacceptable and we're working on it (it's our stupid-busy time though so, once we have breathing room I'll be a dick about changing his habits and mine).

I've looked at troll, as wel as sign-tracker. I love the job board on trelo, it's visually very helpful. My problem is whatever I implement will have to work into our workflow and not just be another step that's skipped and ultimately phased out because it's more ass ache than anything. Sign-tracker does integrate into quickbooks which I use, so it's interesting to think I could use it and integrate everything so, it saves steps if anything, and whoever starts the job into production will be able to easily have an invoice ready to go once it's done.

I'm half tempted to just get a big black board and work-order sleeves and make it old-school up in here. whatever works.
 
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