Despite getting less email with our recent changes, I still get a decent amount of email. Some of it needs a reply from me, some of it needs to be looked at and reviewed by me but doesn’t require a reply, and the rest of it isn’t very important at all.
I’ve written before about how [...]
Archive for the ‘Efficiency’ Category
Not All Email is Created Equal
15 Productive Hours
I’ve instituted various time management and task management “systems” for myself over the years. I’ve almost always had a daily task list with automated reminders for routine things like “remember to check on backups”. I’ve grown into being very strict with how often I check and answer my email. Those things are [...]
Productivity and Side Projects
As I’m sure you know by now, I’m a huge believer in side projects. They stimulate the mind, they open up new opportunities, they give you time to express a different type of creativity. They also have less at stake, so you can build things that don’t have to be profitable right away (or ever). [...]
How We Communicate
One of the best arguments against having partners is that you avoid miscommunication. Not only miscommunication about the simple things (did that order get entered into inventory? did someone de-activate that product we sold out of?), but miscommunication about the grander vision of your company (what are our long term goals and why?). Over time, [...]
Making Inventory Better
I think most retail outlets take a physical inventory every few months to know exactly what they have in stock. Those numbers then get plugged into accounting systems and are used to calculate a true cost of goods sold since the last inventory period, which is necessary to see the real profitability of their business.
Up [...]
Setting Up Employees For Success
These first two weeks with our first employee have been a fascinating experience for us. John has picked up the job much faster than we anticipated. He’s getting more work done more accurately and in less time than we could have ever predicted.
Now, a good portion of that is because he’s a very hard working, [...]
Eliminating Clutter [Flow Chart]
I’m making the move to a (much nicer) new apartment next week and am in the process of going through all of my belongings. By my count, this is 8 moves in 8 years. I’m getting pretty good at getting rid of all of the clutter each time so I don’t need to [...]
New Warehouse Layout, Inventory Zones, & Efficiency
A few weekends back we re-organized the product layout in the warehouse. When we first moved in we only had one row of products. Since then we’ve just been adding shelving units as we go, with no real organization other than trying to keep items of a specific brand together. It grew to the point [...]
Breaking Down the New Detailed Image – Part 3 of 3
Now that I’ve outlined the majority of the improvements on Part 1 and Part 2, I want to take a step back and quickly talk about why I think this was a successful project.
The Process & The Time Frame
We didn’t really plan it this way, but from the time we launched the previous cart in [...]
Officially Addicted to Texter
Did you ever discover a piece of software that is so simple and so useful that it almost seems amazing that it isn’t standard on everyone’s computer? This past weekend while reading Lifehacker, I saw a reference to a free text-replacement tool called Texter that they created and were hyping up. After reading all [...]
