Posts filed under 'Design Project Schedules'
Sometimes I just want to throw up my hands and give up on managing time at all. We are one week away from a huge event and I feel blind-sided by the fact that my husband has volleyball tournaments all weekend. It’s me and the kids and my biz and no one to rescue me. Boo hoo poor me. The only thing is that it’s stressing me out completely, and I wonder how I always end up here, a week or two away from an event, wishing I had better time managment skills.
I think I would recommend to everybody that you break your project down into the smallest pieces possible and enforce your deadlines. This is my advice to myself. Actually, it’s repeatedly the advice to myself. And I’m sure I ramble about it.
But we do get a little better each time. I’ve done some of the things on the to-do, and so far, I think we’re OK. But this weekend is a huge thing, I can’t believe I didn’t realize he’d be gone on Sunday too. Three days of day-long tournaments. But this is the reality of running a business and raising two young kids, something has to give…there’s give and take, push and pull. And you know, I need to lighten up a little too - it happens, we do our best, and we’re still with our kids most of the time. It helps to keep my priorities in perspective.
I need to flip my attitude. At least we are sticking to our priorities. The must-haves ARE happening; like shopping bags and the catalog - print materials. The other problem with the whole weekend of tournaments is that my husband has a lot of graphics work on his shoulder for the big b*Fab event.
I wish I had eight hands. My hands right now are off to get the kids to school. Someday I’ll have an assistant; someday I’ll have an assistant. Someday, we’ll get it all together…
April 20th, 2007
On a scale of one to five for effort, I’d give myself a three for the last couple of months. That’s being honest. Or too harsh. We have a lot going on, so maybe the fact that things fall off my plate each day is due to the over-ambition more than laziness. But, I could sleep a little less, and oh boy will I be getting little-to-no sleep for the next couple of weeks. Less than two weeks until our big retail event. As my duaghter says - “Yipes! Yipes! Yipes!”
But, we’re finally getting real about the business management and we had a good meeting on Friday, about all that needs to get done by then. We’ve got a list! We have no choice but to put one foot in front of the other all day long, every day and chink through that list.
Posters posters posters. Posters with cool images because a picture says 1000 words. This was the one thing we wanted to get done by KIDShow but didn’t. We didn’t know enough about lighting to get anything special, but this time we do.
Plus, speaking of overly-ambitious, I’m working on designing some super-cute super-simple dresses and making the headbands match. Two weeks though. This is why we NEED the list and have to start at the top - so that the most important stuff gets done first - leaving the “nice-to-haves” for last.
April 15th, 2007
With us, it seems like everything is pushed up to the last minute. Rush Rush Rush. And it’s a stressful mode to be in all the time - but I think this is the way it is everywhere. For us, this has been the case for the last two months straight because we’ve jumped at time-crunched opportunities. We’ve opted to go for it rather than pass on the opportunities, but it is crazy-making to the extreme.
I love finding videos, like this one showing designer Mendel preparing a gown for the oscars. If you get the chance to watch it, notice how they are sewing, pinning, and cutting fabric off the dress right up to the minute the dress flies out the door for the fitting. And notice it’s because he had only 7 days to create a couture gown for a celebrity for the oscars. Last-minute opportunity that you do not pass up, no matter what is going on in the business otherwise. I’m pretty positive this dress showed up on Celine Dion during her song performance - imagine that.
When you jump at the opportunities, obviously, the other “already planned and happening” projects suffer. We jumped on an opportunity to do an oscar gift bag event, the timeline of which fell exactly on top of our prep for our first trade show. It was total insanity, and my motto became “make it happen”. We made it happen. There are ways I wish I was a little more prepared for the trade show, gosh I wish we could have accomplished a few more things, but we showed up, we got orders, we spread out around the US, we met a lot of people; we accomplished our main goals. And we met the deadlines for the gift bags with some of the most amazing products we’ve created to date.
And the bags have (supposedly) been delivered, so in the next few months we’ll see if all that hard work was worth it. I’m just hoping to get confirmation everything was delivered as promised, so we can at least say these celebrities have our stuff, even if we can’t claim they love it quite yet.
Back to the last minute thing; we’d like to participate in a fashion show for an event in April; which has given us less than a week to get the look book together with our fall fashions. We pulled off a modelling shoot on Saturda; I’m hoping to pull off at least one more and get the package shipped be end-of-day tomorrow. I’d be nowhere if my husband wasn’t a fully-involved partner. He’ll get the pictures in shape and will get all the catalog graphics and design together. I’m responsible for layout, the clothing, content and shipping. And we’re both dreaming of the days when we have more hands to help. Of course, the more hands we get, the more we take on..so I guess it’s a good sign if you’re rushed all the time.
February 26th, 2007
Well, this is it. One day until I leave for the Vegas tradeshow. I’m nowhere near ready, but isn’t that always the story. This brings me back to project management. How in the world do you get better at project management; at estimating length of time for certain tasks, at not taking on too much, at finishing with breathing room?
I have a problem saying no, especially to opportunities. I know that you can’t jump on every opportunity because you can’t over-extend the business too much, but I definitely jump on opportunities which I think are doable, even if I know it will stretch us thin. I really think that jumping through hoops is crucial to a small startup. Making it look like you didn’t have to jump through any hoops at all is even better.
So, I’m open to any and all ideas that will help me with project management. I finally went back to a paper calendar that I have on me at all times. I scheduled one two-many double appointments before I finally learned that one. And, it helps me remember to write down my business expenses, especially mileage. So, that helps me a bit with the time management.
The other thing that is going to help with my time management is trusting others more. A lot of stuff has come to a head lately that has left me with no choice but to ask for help. Lining up help for all of these little parts is going to help our business a ton. But really, I’m open to ideas - what is everyone doing to set realistic project schedules?
One thing I need is many more tiny deadlines, and I have to meet those. I set intermediate deadlines, but I don’t think I set nearly enough. Ah well..here I am, one day until the tradeshow and we’re crazy not ready. But we’re going to jump through hoops and make it happen, and we’re going to make it look like we’ve always been ready.
February 10th, 2007
Oh wow, the things I’ve committed to in the last couple of days! At the time I say “ok” it all sounds so simple in my head. And I think it all is - but a whole bunch of simple things only becomes complicated. How much of business is gut decisions? How much, oh how much, of my time is spent “listening to my heart?”. I have butterflies in my stomach even now.
I chalk these butterflies up to the day I’ve over-committed to, forgetting that my husband has an unexpected trip out of town. Now, I’m on the verge of pulling my hair out. BUT, I’m into the positive vibration thing, so instead of worrying about it, I’m telling myself it will all go smooth. Totally, 100% smoooooth. And then I’m going to make it through the entire day and tomorrow morning the kids and I are sleeping in…whew, deep breaths.
Last year, we learned at a conference about how your personality type flip-flops when you’re stressed. Questioners become doers, I think. At least that’s what happens to me. I’m the big idea-girl and the big “what if” girl. They say I’ll test forever and never launch - when I’m not stressed. When I’m under insane deadline pressure (like cutting all the fabrics for my samples by 7AM this morning, so I can have them to the contractor by 8:30), I kick into action. Like, really hunker down and kick into action. The catalog is ready for final revisions. The plans are made for this week’s round of samples (and I have to say, I’m incredibly lucky my sewing contractor is ’slipping us in’ this late - incredibly lucky) and all I have to do is cut them and prep the spec sheets. Bag em up and get through this day…
Deep breaths girl, deep breaths..
January 26th, 2007
Things are going good. Things are on the up ‘n up. I think we’ve picked up a sales rep. YES!! I’m excited to bring her on-board and she’s excited to jump on-board, so this could be good, very good.
Once momentum gets going, it’s crazy how things seem to fly by you. All of a sudden, we’re only three weeks from KIDShow, and help-me if we end up in the same scurried position we were in before the gifting suite. The planning HAS to be better than that. So far, it is.
For the last event, we planned product offering, we planned display, we semi-planned print materials. And with all that planning, the product stuff took us so long, we ended up with very little time to devote to display, and less to devote to print materials. What happened? We forgot to set all the deadlines along the way, and to write it all on the calendar.
This time we’re breaking it down to nitty gritty deadlines. We pulled it off last time, but this time I don’t want to feel like we have to pull it off, I want to feel like we’re well prepared. So, that’s the plan. And this time, the print materials and the display are higher priority.
We’re also planning on launching a few of our fashion designs. It’s fall and it’s time. It’s so time. We’ll capitalize on a lot of the designs we’ve invested in, but we’ve got a few new patterns under production - all of them are new to the market, all of them will be fabulous.
Ok, we’re off to do the calendar and then off for the night. We’re sticking to the early morning schedule and it’s really a lot nicer to get to work when we’re refreshed in the morning.
January 19th, 2007
We’re not on a very balanced schedule right now, but we need to be. We focused so much on the web design in Sept. & Oct. that we couldn’t get to product development. Then, November and December was spent focusing on product development, and we couldn’t get back to keeping the site updated.
We need to balance so that everything is always moving forward. We need to figure out how to do this, so that we’re not completely focused on just one thing. I know we can do it, we just have to figure it out.
I know that I definitely need the first couple days of this week to get caught up on admin tasks. But I also need to finalize the product plan for KIDShow (not to mention get all the kit papers faxed back to them). And I have so many emails to send / contacts to update from the gifting suite last week. So, if I can get those things done, then I’m going to feel like I’m on top of things.
Happy Monday all! Happy Martin Luther King Jr. day.
January 15th, 2007
This morning I’m starting to feel the pressure of prepping for the celebrity gifting suite. Oh boy. I’m excited, nervous, and stressed - and all equally. And that’s ok. Keeps me moving, right?
We’ve done the initial braindump of everything we need to have ready to go by January 11. It’s a big list. Now, the schedule, so I can break down and prioritize all those items. Most of the items fall into two categories: Product & Marketing Materials. Which will be good stuff to have developed for KIDShow - it really is all going to work together well.
But the stress comes from the insane list of stuff to be done from ordering the gift bags with our logo, to designing the coupons and catalog, getting it all printed and that’s nothing to do with getting enough sample product together. Sometimes, when I sit down and write things out, it calms me down, helps me to focus. Right now, it’s stressing me out.:-)
What I do need to calm down enough to think about is deadlines baby. I want to have it all together a week ahead of time, and have that last week to work up sample displays. So that gives me three weeks with a trip out of town for Xmas in-between.
OK. From there I know we have three weeks for product and marketing materials. Think about printing time and delivery time for the marketing materials and I should have them done in a week and a half to be safe. I need to have those ready for printing by two days after Christmas. I should have the final prototype of all products by the same time, just to be safe.
If final prototypes are finished in a week and a half, that gives a week and a half for any necessary production. The other consideration is custom items - I’m going to have only two weeks before the event to get personalized orders completed because that’s when we’ll start receiving confirmation of the attendees. Our contractors are prepared for these rush orders.
Now I’ll just take a look at all the tasks that fall under each of those deadlines and break down my priorities. Wow, I stuck with writing it out a little and I feel a lot more sane. Except that the deadlines are totally insane, but we’re not going to talk about that.
We can accomplish amazing things, we can accomplish amazing things…
What’s really laughable is that all of that is just the event prep. We still need to do all the other business running junk (like newsletters are due and we need to keep the sample process moving for the tradeshow). But, everywhere I’ve ever worked it’s been insane deadlines and too much to do and somehow we all roll on…
December 16th, 2006
Ha Ha, I was going to write everyday. I can barely keep up with myself everyday, much less on top of everything. Kids are starting the holiday break and that means a less-hectic schedule for us. Less running around anyway. Met a friend for lunch today and ended up in this same random strip mall that has a wonderful CUSTOM baby / child boutique that is going to be a great match for our products, so that was fortuitous.
I’ve had all of these projects just h-a-n-g-i-n-g over my head for a couple of weeks; I was knocked down with the flu, and I’m just finally caught up. I have done some planning for the gifting suite. It was flattering to talk to the event planner, because she raved about how excited she was to have OUR products represented - even if it was just a lot of sunshine, it was nice to hear it.
Here’s what’s big in my life right now and I don’t care how cheezy it sounds - positive vibrations. I got into such a rut - and could feel how much thinking about being in the rut made the rut worse - so, I had to remind myself of what an optimist I truly am and get myself out of the rut; faith and hard work helps a lot too.
Something cool for me is that I’ve devised a new product that I’m really excited about and believe we can realistically launch by for the celebrity event. And I’m really excited about it and the labor is simple, the design is simple and this is good stuff. I feel strongly that we need a hot product that is at a good price point. Our personalized blankets are hot; getting a lot of buzz, but they are still on the pricey side of baby gifts. I know that the sales will continue to build, but how nice it’d be to have an item that’s HOT and accessible by a larger demographic. This will be a great KIDShow item too. I’m working on the first pattern to get a prototype, so I can find out if my idea will work the way I envision it. But if it does, it’s full of all sorts of potential.
Oh, I saw a whole blanket tag about not leaving bedding in the crib with infants, so I’m going to have to look into that and see if I can find standard wording. It was much more detailed than “not intended for bedding”.
Isn’t there always so much to do?
December 15th, 2006
It’s amazing how fast things can change. A couple of days since my last update and we now have a new deadline in our schedule. We’ve been invited to participate in a pre-golden globes event, a gifting suite. We get to give free Baby Fabulous schwag to celebrities and there should be good press and we can take pictures. So, we have to have a certain number of items available for gifts and the date is one month away.
This doesn’t change things too drastically. Still working towards KIDShow as our main market deadline, but I definitely want to have a couple of things ready for the January gifting suite too. I’ll know more tomorrow about how much we can swing, what kind of variety would be best, etc. I’m very excited, but mainly just feel a huge need to buckle down and guarantee we’re ready for this. We have to be, we have to be. I feel it’s a golden opportunity.
This week is creeping away from me. My pattern maker is just waiting on me. I forever underestimate how long tasks will take me to complete. But I’ll meet my Friday deadline. Always meet my deadlines. I’m still reeling from yesterday’s - getting a swatch ring to one of the local boutiques. Worst - forgot I had my kids in the afternoon, so it was my first appointment where I had no choice but to bring the kids along. It went fine and I made a new friend. It’s the small things, - like the appointment going smooth in spite of it being the end of the day & in spite of having my kids with me- that make a BIG difference.
OK - tonight is about working on technical sketches. And a plan for the gifting suite. Priorities, priorities.
December 6th, 2006
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