Freedom Countdown

Posts Tagged ‘organization’

I need to find the drumbeat for my new business.  What’s that you say? Well, in Six Sigma Lean, the goal is to operate a process, like a factory line, in a consistent, efficient, error free manner so that one item comes off the line every set increment of time.  Like 1 candle per second, that’s the drumbeat of the candle production line.  Every second of every minute 1 candle is made, boom, boom, boom, just like a steady drumbeat.

As a part time business owner, I find myself rushing to get orders placed, then waiting for the merchandise to come in, then rushing to process the merchandise.  Or letting the accounting pile up for weeks, then cramming for hours to get caught up.  Or blogging.   There’s nothing steady about any aspect of my business and it contributes to an overall feeling of being out of control.  Things that were manageable when I began the business are totally unmanageable as the business has grown.

My options all revolve around becoming more disciplined in my activities.  Perhaps, I do accounting every Saturday morning, or divide my orders into smaller orders and place them every Monday and Wednesday so that there is a steady drumbeat of merchandise arriving every week. This becomes especially important if I hire someone to work with me because I’ll need a predictable amount of work for them to do.

It’s weird, but it just might start looking a little more like a job and a little less like a dream.  Hmmmmm.

T-Minus 312 Days

Running a business out of your home has a lot of pros and cons.  Heavily weighing in on the pros side  is the convenience and cost savings, but the single largest con of running a product driven business from home is that products, or widgets in my case, end up everywhere.  I have piles and boxes of them in every room.  I’ll get them all organized and then they overcome me again.

I’ve made various vows that I will only allow them into one room and then I receive a large batch of widgets and they overflow the room.   I’ve relegated them to my home office, only to find out that after 8 hours in my home office for my day job, I don’t feel like spending another hour or two working on widgets in that same room.  I get so sick of that room aka prison cell.

I have a large outbuilding that houses a lot of my business related stuff but it’s not heated and only one small room is air conditioned.  I’m considering moving my enterprise out there but that brings up a whole host of other issues related to Internet access,  extra computers, cell phone reception, heat, the occasional mouse, and the general isolation of that building which is really creepy at night.

I know that the outbuilding is the ultimate solution but I’m hesitant to get sidetracked spending 10 or 15 hours getting it fixed up when I have so much else to do.  I guess it will rise to the top of the pile someday.  For now, I’ll just keep moving widgets around.  It’s a good thing that I really like them.