kreb wrote: The television is evil. When you're on your deathbed, will you be remembering sitcoms or car builds?

Say What?

A willingness to part with money so that you can equip yourself and so that you can buy things instead of making them seems to speed things up. That's what I'm told anyway.

Sometimes, just 15 minuntes of cleaning and organizing feels like progress. When you can step back and look at a clean(er) workbench or tool drawer... and it usually makes the time to do spend working on the car more efficient.

My g/f is dead set against me "wasting time" building a better tool organizer for the renovation tools, but every time I get frustrated digging through a pile of crap on the tool table looking for something, I further convinced it would be time well invested...

Curmudgeon wrote: The Internet will kill your shop time.

Definitely, this has made it possible to find an awesome deal/project everynight of the week. I need some kind of hypnosis to cure my internet/car/project fascination.

My big projects are built for The GRM Challenge, so I have that deadline each year. But having a Strict Deadline does make projects roll out the door.
Oh, I also put a TV in my garage. Add up your TV time, and move that time to your garage; you'd be surprised. Though you might have to listen to your favorite shows instead of watching them. I listened to Ken Burns' Civil war, and Lewis and Clark (Canoe stealing, Dog eaters) without actually seeing much of either. :)

I use my motorcycle as the project. Much easier to deal with. I should probably do something with the Z06, but it's pretty fun the way it is.

fast_eddie_72 wrote: Between work, the kids, crap to do at home... I have so little time to work on the car projects it sometimes seems hopeless.

No kids and I ignore crap to do at home as much as possible.

Klayfish wrote:

kreb wrote: the "15 minutes" rule seems to really help. Unless you're pushed to the absolute edge, you can always scrape up 15 minutes. Theoretically 15 minutes a day times 7 days is almost two hours a week. Not a whole lot, but something. That's in theory. In practice, you tend to get inspired and spend more time than that. Also, the television is evil. When you're on your deathbed, will you be remembering sitcoms or car builds?

I've tried that too, but it never works. That 15 minutes includes getting whatever tools I need, cleaning up at least a little when I'm done, etc... So I'm left with maybe 9 minutes to do acutal work.

I hear you. That's one of the reasons that my current project is organization. In the old days, half my time might be spent looking for stuff. Now via the wonders of pegboards and such, I can get any tool I need in literally seconds.

Most nights, I wait until we have the kids in bed (8pm or so) and then I step out into the garage for at least 30 minutes. Some nights I skip altogether because wife, cold, house, work, or whatever, but I make it a point to put on my coveralls and get out there at least 3 nights a week.

Most nights, the 30 minutes goes for a couple hours, and some nights I just piddle around until my allotted time is up. Even if I'm out there for the bare minimum, I'll at least take some measurements, organize some things, spray a little paint on a part, or even just look at a problem and think on it for a bit.

It's a new system that I'm trying right now. Previously, I would laze around the house most of the evening without any real motivation until about 11:00 would hit. By then, I was mentally itching to go out and try to make some progress, but physically too tired. So far, it seems to be working out. I've made a lot of progress but it doesn't seem that I've spent that much time out in the garage. 3-4 hours a week adds up fast.

If I had a garage, every single spare minute of mine would be spent in it. Since the rally car is located at my buddies which is a 30 minute drive in traffic each way, I usually only go there one to two times per week (one of those days being a full Saturday).

The worst is when you do this, and something happens and you realize you don't have the right tool/part for that day = written off time :(

Lists!!!

Sometimes you look at a job and see the entirety of it and feel overwhelmed.

Once you break it down to small easily digestible chunks, you can see progress when you scratch through or erase a list item.

List for the project and a general list for...garage improvement or something.

Sliced in that new plug and repaired a cup holder. but it needs paint before you can reinstall so you write that you need a certain paint on the garage list (white board that I see every day) also on the list is headlight polish and research the heater door problem on the Crown Vic (Internet can be your friend).

TV...get the SWMBO watching stuff that you hate! Cake Boss is resposible for MASSIVE strides in keeping my shop clean.

Bruce

I had busted ass on all my school work so I could leave tonight (Wednesday) to work on the Subaru.

Show up to my Calc class today, prof informs us that we have a test on Friday.

Oh well!

Yeah, TV, internet - check your dork status... (unless doing project research) and video games (I'm at level 110 on on Payday: The Heist )really mess with your time. If it's a motivation factor, the first 10 minutes are the worse. Once you get going, it's easier. having a warm shop in the winter helps, but that's a luxury we all don't have. ( I don't) Summer helps too, more day light, and warm.

I have a 944 Turbo and a Merkur XR4Ti both a few hours from being finished, but I broke my damn leg and can't work on the cars for several more weeks...blah

At least it will almost be spring by then.

One thing at a time.

Work, family, and chores kept getting the way. I decided to get rid of work. That should free up about 50-60 hours/week to get to the stockpile of cars.

I just put a whiteboard in the garage, and broke it down into sections for each car. I list the things that need to be done, and have decided to have at least one wrench session a week that coordinates with my wife's schedule. When I'm in there, I pick a task that seems to match the amount of time I want to spend - once I get rolling on that, time starts to fly, I start enjoying it, and a few things end up getting knocked off. Getting started is indeed the hard part.

Project scope creep can be paralysing, as can too many projects. Buying a low-maintenance family and commuter car helped tremendously: it allows me to spend time in the garage when I want to do what I want to.

OK, don't hate me. This is at least a little bit tongue-in-cheek.

Ready?

1. Find a shrink that agrees that you have add.

2. Get a prescription for adderall.

3. Finish all projects.

There. That wasn't so hard, was it?

MG Bryan wrote: A willingness to part with money so that you can equip yourself and so that you can buy things instead of making them seems to speed things up. That's what I'm told anyway.

I've been doing more of that lately. Sometimes just coordinating getting the car somewhere is a huge pain.

Ian F wrote: Sometimes, just 15 minuntes of cleaning and organizing feels like progress. When you can step back and look at a clean(er) workbench or tool drawer... and it usually makes the time to do spend working on the car more efficient.

It seems like I spend a week getting parts lined up, things in order, ready to go, then try to get a significant part of the project done on a weekend. IT feels better when you get that hunk out of the way than it does when you're waiting for parts. But, yeah. Organizing is something at least.

I didn't make it out for coolant hose, but I'll be out of the office sooner than I expected, so I'll grab it on the way home.

pstrbrc wrote: OK, don't hate me. This is at least a little bit tongue-in-cheek.

I don't. No worries...

pstrbrc wrote: Ready? #1. Find a shrink that agrees that you have add.

I have the shrink and the ADD.

pstrbrc wrote: #2. Get a prescription for adderall.

Even covered by my medical insurance. $8 a month!

pstrbrc wrote: #3. Finish all projects.

Not quite, but I'll tell you this- there's no way I'd have done even half of what I've done witout it. Plus I actually get my job done. Used to be I'd have like two weeks where nothing got done at work, then I had to work my ass off just to try to feel like I wasn't going to get fired. Now, at least, when I leave the office and go to the workshop, I have the work I'm supposed to do done and I actually feel able to go do something else. Before Adderall I couldn't get motivated to do anything after work. Just getting thorough the day was 110% draining.

I know you were making a joke, I just though it was funny that I actually did it! lol And it helped! Not sure I'd recommend it for people who don't really have ADD though.

Curmudgeon wrote: The Internet will kill your shop time.

QFT

I hear ya'. I spent every waking hour I wasn't at "work" for 7 months making our bigger, better project house livable and finishing house number one so we could sell it.

Then a bargain priced Radical came along and it was just barely possible if I hustled to buy it, get it from Pittsburgh to DC, go over and make it race worthy, do a TT to be sure it runs, and make the DC region SCCA double race school w/ an hour to spare. Which I did.

Mid-summer I changed jobs - careers really - which has freed up time, but the race car took a bunch of time, and the house is ongoing. My Sprite is 97% finished and sits under a cover. I did wrap up my RD400 Daytona - There was an event I told everyone I'd be riding it to and I stuck to it.

As soon as race season ended I gutted the bathroom and it's going back together. Drains, plumbing, subfloor are in, walls are being framed now. Probably 3-4 more weeks of all my not at "work" time. I broke from working on the house to transact the purchase of the assets of a machine shop, then packing and moving 4 tons of machinery and pallets 40 miles. The simple act of needing a 220/30 breaker in the shop HVAC closet sub-panel turned into a week of gutting the closet, replacing the sub panel and the HVAC ducting, re-plumbing the sump pump, etc etc....

There's the lathe and mill of my dreams in the basement for the last month and I simply don't have time to move everything in the shop to run conduit, pull wire, and set up the rotary phase converter, mag starter and shut-offs.

I'm doing 8am to midnight every day between day job and working on the house, and I see the shop and garage when I have to go rummage for a tool.

I'm on a 2 year plan though - this month marks 1 year in this house - at 2 years the inside is DONE. All new everything, do it myself, perfectly, save probably $45-50k in labor. Awesome machine shop and garage-mahal, DONE. You just have to push like crazy, and sometimes when it seems completely insurmountable - you just need to pick up a tool and do something. Anything. You just need to be able to say "I did this". Then the next thing, an the next 50, and the next 1000 things.

BTW - The reason I'm sitting in front of the box rather than framing is that I hit critical mess in the jobsite - where nothing will get done w/o a major cleanup, and as I was kneeling to pick up a stack of 2x4s, a couple 8' 2x6s leaning in the corner fell silently and walloped me in the right corner of my head - right where my old brain surgery site is. Like concussion hard. So I knocked off for the night.

That sounds like my last semester in college lol. In order to graduate this fall, I needed 6 300+ level courses and one gen-ed to finish my art degree. Took 4 studios and 3 history courses and basically had one or more major project, exam, presentation, or paper due every week. On my two days off from class and work I volunteered to run the photo studio and the sculpture studio so that I made sure I made it in to campus those days and worked on stuff. I made a list of everything that needed to get done and when it was due, then planned out when I was going to work on everything in order to break the pile of stuff that was due down into reasonable chunks and that I knew I was on schedule. I wasn't working full-time at least, only 24-30 hours a week, just to pay the basics and keep myself fed and buy art supplies. By early October through the end of December I pretty much worked on my school stuff or was at work 9am-to 2-4am every day except Saturday and Sunday mornings when I would sleep in to about 11am and was basically fueled by stress (a couple minor-ish panic attacks weekly and daily to more than daily nosebleeds starting around mid-November through finals), caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol, but goddamnit I passed (made Dean's list actually) and graduated.

My point is you'll be amazed at how much time you have in a day if you sit down and actually try to utilize every spare minute of it towards doing something productive. I actually kinda miss the grind... once I can get working full-time or more and have some money rolling in, I really want to start a bike project and a few art projects in the time I used to spend wasting away watching television or doing whatever mindless crap that all seems so superfluous now.

Sell all the cars and get yourself a nice healthy crack habit.

It's really a lot better.

• You end up with less stuff, not more.

• You still go through the same amount of money

• You're REALLY motivated.

Shawn

First of all, you have to decide for yourself if you are in this primarily for the driving or for the project challenge. Most people who lean heavily to the driver side have a hard time staying the course.

That said, if you enjoy the project aspect,4 hours a week set aside for the project and it will get done. You would have a hard time convincing me that you don't have 4 hours of wasted time that could be put towards the project. Surfing the net, facebooking, texting/tweeting the planet and TV are all expendable. Family time is not.

When you go to the garage, go there with a plan.Have a task planed that can be finished in the 4 hours. If you want to surf the net, dedicate the time to surfing about the task you want to finish in the 4 hours. Even something as mundane as removing rust from bolts can be studied on the net and allow you to enter the shop with a purpose.