Hi. Apologies if this seems like an essay. The short question is where do you lot work from? Do you have largish houses, or do you work from a unit somewhere, or do you live in and work from old two up and two downs?
The longer read: After some thinking during a few days camping in the storms last week, I decided not to take on any new contracts for the time being. Maybe get a 'real' job or something.
I set up my business from scratch using the tools I already owned, initially as a handyman, and was working from a caravan and then a houseshare in mid-Wales. Although I took very little from the business for myself, I managed to build up enough stock and tools to be decently equipped as a plumber.
Due to being unable to sell up and find a suitable house in Wales, I ended up moving into my own house in Essex, and old friends gave me a few projects to start on. Did some some subcontract work for a couple of local builders which was good financially, though this isn't compatible with the reason I got into this craft which is to work to the highest standard I am capable of, but that isn't always what builders want done, sadly, so not keen on this, and I quite honestly think it holds me back.
I am suffering from chronic disorganisation. I'm not wanting the jobs big enough to justify a skip as I work alone and wouldn't finish them in time, so there are always odds and ends taking up space (local tips won't take trade waste even if you pay).
Storing tools and materials is tricky as I am in one of those centre-terraced houses where the door open into the lounge. My house is big enough to store things in, but has been extended and made open-plan and makes the worst possible use of light and space as it is (quite honestly it would be a better house if it hadn't been extended), and a tiny garden with awkward access makes a shed or similar impossible. Even the porch door opens outwards and has no way of being secured open so it swings around and tries to injure people. The rest of the house is a close match to that door. The guy who did the conversion was a bouncer who presumably didn't work from home.
With this level of disorganisation I'm realising that I'm not following up leads because I can't seem to organise myself out of the house on time, or arrive on site with everything I need (there's always something that got left by one of the staircases, or in the kitchen) and it makes me feel incompetent to do the work.
Problem is that now I finally need to start taking a wage, I'm also aware how quickly the savings that the business has will disappear, especially as my road tax and insurance are up for renewal, so basically I'm not making enough money to keep going.
Many many years ago when I lived in an ex-council place with a utility room, I'd put things by the back door so I'd have everything I needed in the morning and store things in the adjacent storeroom, but I can't do anything similar here. When your brain is chaotic, having organised systems you can simply follow can work, but I can't seem to get anything organised in this place (in spite of extreme minimalism I've lost clothespegs, a potato masher, pressure-cooker gaskets, and a torch... this morning I spent an hour looking for a screwdriver that I thought was in its place and - wasn't (I found it eventually)).
The crux of the matter is that while I'd like a bigger garden, I could live here (though quite honestly I'd rather somewhere a bit more rural like Gloucestershire or something) if I had an office job, or if I were employed and had (at most) a van to keep at home. Or if I didn't work from home, but I think the cost of a decent workshop would be too much, and with Colchester's traffic, it would be impractical as well.
My dad says get a store offsite, but he lives in an area where the population has halved in fifty years, there's hardly any crime because everyone knows everyone and there are garage complexes all over the place and about half the people own a disused cowshed, and no traffic jams ever. So presumably this is cheap and practical where he is.
I realised that every builder or plumber I know seems to have a spacious home with an accessible and reasonable garden whether that be a farm or an ex-council house, not a labyrinthine extended two-up and two-down with a loft storage room you can't actually get anything of any size into.
Is this the case?
The longer read: After some thinking during a few days camping in the storms last week, I decided not to take on any new contracts for the time being. Maybe get a 'real' job or something.
I set up my business from scratch using the tools I already owned, initially as a handyman, and was working from a caravan and then a houseshare in mid-Wales. Although I took very little from the business for myself, I managed to build up enough stock and tools to be decently equipped as a plumber.
Due to being unable to sell up and find a suitable house in Wales, I ended up moving into my own house in Essex, and old friends gave me a few projects to start on. Did some some subcontract work for a couple of local builders which was good financially, though this isn't compatible with the reason I got into this craft which is to work to the highest standard I am capable of, but that isn't always what builders want done, sadly, so not keen on this, and I quite honestly think it holds me back.
I am suffering from chronic disorganisation. I'm not wanting the jobs big enough to justify a skip as I work alone and wouldn't finish them in time, so there are always odds and ends taking up space (local tips won't take trade waste even if you pay).
Storing tools and materials is tricky as I am in one of those centre-terraced houses where the door open into the lounge. My house is big enough to store things in, but has been extended and made open-plan and makes the worst possible use of light and space as it is (quite honestly it would be a better house if it hadn't been extended), and a tiny garden with awkward access makes a shed or similar impossible. Even the porch door opens outwards and has no way of being secured open so it swings around and tries to injure people. The rest of the house is a close match to that door. The guy who did the conversion was a bouncer who presumably didn't work from home.
With this level of disorganisation I'm realising that I'm not following up leads because I can't seem to organise myself out of the house on time, or arrive on site with everything I need (there's always something that got left by one of the staircases, or in the kitchen) and it makes me feel incompetent to do the work.
Problem is that now I finally need to start taking a wage, I'm also aware how quickly the savings that the business has will disappear, especially as my road tax and insurance are up for renewal, so basically I'm not making enough money to keep going.
Many many years ago when I lived in an ex-council place with a utility room, I'd put things by the back door so I'd have everything I needed in the morning and store things in the adjacent storeroom, but I can't do anything similar here. When your brain is chaotic, having organised systems you can simply follow can work, but I can't seem to get anything organised in this place (in spite of extreme minimalism I've lost clothespegs, a potato masher, pressure-cooker gaskets, and a torch... this morning I spent an hour looking for a screwdriver that I thought was in its place and - wasn't (I found it eventually)).
The crux of the matter is that while I'd like a bigger garden, I could live here (though quite honestly I'd rather somewhere a bit more rural like Gloucestershire or something) if I had an office job, or if I were employed and had (at most) a van to keep at home. Or if I didn't work from home, but I think the cost of a decent workshop would be too much, and with Colchester's traffic, it would be impractical as well.
My dad says get a store offsite, but he lives in an area where the population has halved in fifty years, there's hardly any crime because everyone knows everyone and there are garage complexes all over the place and about half the people own a disused cowshed, and no traffic jams ever. So presumably this is cheap and practical where he is.
I realised that every builder or plumber I know seems to have a spacious home with an accessible and reasonable garden whether that be a farm or an ex-council house, not a labyrinthine extended two-up and two-down with a loft storage room you can't actually get anything of any size into.
Is this the case?
