Tidy Workshop - Happy Workshop

This post will seem hugely dull and boring but it is important, and I hope people will see how maintaining the basics of good practice are of great value. Making time to maintain a clean and tidy working environment can sometimes seem a burden, especially when working on projects with pressures that we are all familiar with. In addition, creative types and people working with their hands seem perhaps the worst culprits. I'll hold my hands up and confess to being untidy. Fortunately knowing you have a problem helps you deal with it. The photo above is an example of when an area has become to unacceptably unkempt. Our machine shop had become dirty, rouge items of scrap had begun to settle in areas and various things were not in their place. Typically it takes a week to go from tidy to untidy.

A good tidy up takes about 3 hours, the floor is vacuumed, waste removed and things put back in their place. The photo below represents a good working environment, post clean up. One of the things I enjoy about this process is it creates a desire to be very open about showing current and potential clients around. From my own experience, being able to see your commissioned projects progressed or just witnessing other projects move through is very reassuring. It also created pride in our environment and I'm sure that attitude rubs off on our projects too.