Suggestion for new makers, or experienced makers.

A

Andy Johnston

Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
189
Hey guys. As many of you know I am new to the game here and have been asking many questions. I have received so much good advice and information, along with all of the research that I have done myself, that it is overwhelming. I have been trying to think of ways to keep up with all the information and the only logical thing I could think of was also the simplest. When ever you see something you find cool, useful, or receive great advice from other makers like I have, take that information and copy it and paste it into a word document. I labeled mine "Knife making advice and information" but you can name it what ever you want as long as it stands out as the document you want when needing to refer to it. I know that all of these forum posts will be archived as they are never deleted, but I believe that this is a faster more efficient way for someone to be able to refer back to things they thought were useful. Hope it helps guys and if anybody else has any great organizational tips for things such as designs, templates, order histories, shop tools or ANYTHING please feel free to post them here. I'd like this post to be a help to any and all makers. Organization helps with efficiency and results in less headaches, which I know as a new maker you can get a lot of if you cant keep track of whats going on.
 
Saving to a dedicated file is an excellent system.
Many makers additionally print out the most useful shop tips and methods, and stick them in a file folder that sits in the shop. This allows a hands on reference for photos, charts, and data. All photos and data online are not permanent, and may be gone when you go back for that data later.

To learn some things it is important in many cases to print out the info and read it on an actual sheet of paper. The older you are the more important this is. Your brain stores physical images differently that virtual images. What you see/read on a computer screen is rarely stored in long term memory. Much like the cache on your computer, it gets dumped when the next sleep cycle re-boots your memory storage. Physical memories of things you did with you hands or read of a physical paper/book are stored in long term memory each sleep cycle. Silly as it sounds, reading out loud helps with storage, too.

To make things worse, the modern learning style of looking everything up online or storing it in your database makes long term storage seem less needed for your brain. Evolution conserves energy, and if you don't need to do some mental task or store a memory, your brain will skip it. That is great for not needing to sleep with one eye open to avoid getting eaten by a predator anymore, but bad for deciding what the decimal equivalent of 37/64th is.
Go to the checkout counter at most retail stores and the register person can't give you the proper change for a purchase when you give him $21.01 for a $16.26 purchase.....unless he enters the amount tendered in the register. This person may be an honor roll student, but has never stored the addition and subtraction tables in his/her brain, because they are on his/her calculator/cell phone/computer/register. I have met engineers just out of their post-grad program who could not take a pencil and paper and do factoring that was part of high school trig 50 years ago. They no longer teach how to figure out a logarithm or secant or sine...because they are already stored in a machine for you.
 
When I get a shop I plan to have multiple 3 ring binders in a drawer somewhere. At least one for designs, one for order histories (belts, tools, materials), and one for costs per blade. I would add more as needed.
 
I use google docs to keep notes everytime I find a good tip, piece of equipment for the wishlist, heat treating, supplier, etc

This way it is available from any computer and you can't lose it if your computer dies.
 
Rojaz said:
Evernote (or similar) is superb for organising this sort of information. Clip complete pages / selections / pictures - basically any format you want - automatically shared between your devices.....
https://evernote.com/evernote/
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, I am going to try this. I have folders upon folders in my bookmarks and afraid of that ultimate crash and lose it all.
I think it would take a reem of paper to print all my stuff off and didn't want to keep a bookshelf full of binders.

Great thread Andy, been thinking about this for a long time and not doing. You gave me my first baby step to organization :D
 
I always save a bookmark in my browser when I find a link to a process, tool or supplier. I think I should start using evernote instead. I never considered what would happen when my computer dies. Thanks for a great tip.
 
I have used google docs for just about everything before, and I plan on saving my word document to it soon too. The nice thing about google docs, or google drive which is where you make google docs, over evernote, which is still a good tool, is that it keeps your documents even if your computer dies like evernote does, if you already have a gmail then you already have google drive, if you ever want to share that document you created you can go into the document and click share or select it in your drive and there is a share button there. I also just like how clean and easy google drive is.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top