Studio Tip: Scheduling

Sean gives some ideas on what has, and hasn't worked over the years in keeping the studio schedule manageable.

Transcription:

Coming to you from Starr Studios in Denison, Texas, this is Coffee with a Signpainter, a weekly podcast hosted by sign painter, Sean Starr, that consists of interviews with other sign painters and some of the customers and characters Sean comes across while running his studio. Hello, and welcome back to Coffee with a Sign Painter. Today we're gonna do something a little different. I've been, thinking about this. I get a lot of emails and have quite a few, that I've received over the last five years of, different people getting into sign painting, that have asked me practical questions on operating a studio and, you know, dealing with some of the business related issues.

And I thought today would be a really good, time to kick this off, and address the the concern or issue of, scheduling because, most of us are one man show. Like in my case, it's me on a daily basis, and my wife, Kaylee, assists, where needed. And then, occasionally, we'll pull in, somebody like, Cole Bridges, who's down in Denton, that's worked with me for a few years. But, yeah. So I wanted to address this issue with scheduling because it can be a real challenge, especially now that we're entering into what is most people's busy season.

You know, when you're trying to not only operate the business and take care of the things that, that keep the man off your back, but, you know, just how do you schedule in time to design and paint and, take care of all the other things you have to do. And this is a huge challenge. Everyone I've talked to, I just spoke with Mike Meyer this morning. We we were gonna do an interview today, for a couple weeks down the road, podcast. And, he just got hit with the same thing.

It's just a couple of customers walked in right before we were about to get started and, you know, just all of the juggling that goes on. So I thought I'd give a few practical tips on, some things that have helped me over the years, some things that have not helped. I am, definitely not afraid of technology, and I I utilize it quite a bit to manage some things. I use Microsoft OneNote, for some other aspects of keeping my life organized, and that works works well. But as far as the actual running the studio and keeping things on an even keel, there's only one thing I have found that consistently works for me.

And it's really kinda cheesy, but it works. It's, got these really small notepads. They're like two by three inch notepad. And, I just write my notes and I stick them on the computer screen. And I know that sounds ridiculous in a way, but, that's how I I keep on top of things.

Yeah. That's how I keep track of, when to call clients back, when to get them artwork. You know, oddball requests that come out of the blue. Things I need to follow-up on. Some of the things I've tried that have not worked for me, years ago when I worked in a sign shop up in Seattle, as much as I disliked working there, they were incredibly organized And, they had this very in-depth system of these work order sheets, and, you'd fill them out with all the details of the job.

You'd sketch out the sign that you'd be working on. And that worked well when you had, you know, a couple of dozen people involved because you could just, you know, hand off the work sheet and say I need a board cut this size and painted this color. And, then when they would go to the next person, they could hand off the worksheet and say, well, here's the painted board. This is what you gotta do on it. So that kind of thing worked well.

But for for me, for just being my own deal on a daily basis, I've tried that and that didn't work. I've tried all sorts of electronic organizational things with software and, doesn't doesn't work because I end up, you know, getting pulled in so many directions during the day that sitting down and typing in detailed information and checking that and that's never worked consistently. I'll, I'll stick with that for maybe a week and then it's gone. But these stupid little notes, they work. And, I do a combination of little notes with, checklists like to do lists.

And I'll sit down in the morning when I'm having my coffee, and I'll look over everything and say, okay. What do I gotta do today to keep, you know, things from going berserkle? And, I'll just make a checklist of things that I feel fairly confident I can get done in one day. And, that way when I'm pulled away by an email or a phone call or whatever and I get, I lose my focus or I'm being stupid and spending too much time looking at things on the computer, I can go back to the checklist and be like, Hey, Okay, get back on it. You gotta make sure this gets done.

So that's that's it for me. As far as what I found that has worked. You know, I I do want to be more organized. I do, you know, wanna be on top of things more, but, you know, I I think most of you probably have the same challenges. There's just always something pulling for your attention.

Whether it's, you know, quarterly sales tax nonsense or getting something deposited in the bank so you can pay your electric bill or, oh, man, I'm out of, you know, one shot maroon. I better get that ordered. You know, there's always something that's pulling you off the job and where that gets easier for me is, when I have to leave the studio and go work on-site. That's it's I think it's one of the reasons I enjoy working on-site on projects so much is, aside from the phone ringing, I really don't have any interruptions, and I can just paint for eight hours. And I I think that's a a really desirable thing for me is to just be able to just kinda tune everything out and put it off until I get back.

But you always gotta come back. You know, he's gotta deal with, all the other stuff. And, I think as I've mentioned before, you know, I've I've made a real commitment to trying to keep my life in my schedule as simple and open as I can. And, even with those efforts, it's just it's just constant. There's something pulling for your attention.

So that's it. You know, that's, That's that's what's really allowed me to continue working on some of these larger scale projects, even though we're tiny shop. And it's not pretty. I got, masking tape and notes all over the bottom part of the screen of my computer right now on things that I gotta do today, meeting that I have at 04:00 today. Mock ups that are due next week.

Customer I need to go follow-up with in person next week. So there you go. That's my tip. What I would like to ask to is, if any of you have any questions you'd like answered, I've got a lit of a list that I started of, common questions I've been asked over the years from people getting into it that would really like some guidance, and I will be addressing those periodically. But if you have a specific question you wanna ask, hit me up, go to seanstar.com, and, go ahead and send me a question and I'll try and work it into a future tips episode.

And, there you go. So little bit of a short one this week. But that's okay. We got some really cool interviews in the works with some people that most of you know, and I will try to keep things informative and entertaining somewhat. I'm not much of an entertainer, but I'll try to keep the things lively.

And, that's it. Little short podcast for this week. We'll see you next time. Today's episode of Coffee with a SoundPainter is brought to you by Full City Rooster Coffee Roasters in Dallas, Texas. Roasting distinctive coffees from around the world.

Sean drinks Full City Rooster coffee every day in the studio. You can order their coffee online at fullcityrooster.com. Thanks for listening to Coffee with a SignPainter, hosted by Sean Starr. You can find all sorts of info about the show and sign painting, including previous episodes at our website, seanstarr.com.