Labelling
In my own journey as a designer, there is this one thing that had consistently annoyed me more than anything else. That is to have to stop myself to find something that shouldn’t have be lost at the first place. Then, to come back and forget what I was doing at the first place. I have always been a very organised person, but discovering this problem makes me want to be a even more organised person. A person would can influence their own environment to be organise as well. I want to truly try and solve this issue of messiness, and to be the most organise person there is. I have found labelling to be one of the best tool to help me consistently stay organised, and here is how.
In my time at crafter’s lab, I had constantly had to find things that are misplaced or missing. This had really annoyed me when I am in a tight deadline, and I can really blame all my colleagues, and definitely not me, in making the place so unorganised. But I questioned: “There is no way they are deliberately trying to sabotage themselves, right?“ And indeed they aren’t, as they are also constantly annoyed by the fact that things aren’t where they are. And is sentence like these that help us identifies problem:
“… things aren’t where they are.“
There is this one quote I have heard that help me understand how I personally had stay so organised myself. It is a quote by Benjamin Franklin himself:
“A place for everything and everything in its place.“
This is one of the best organisation principle there is. If everything has its place, then you will always know where to find this thing. If everything is in its place, then nothing should ever go missing. For our workshop, we already know where to find certain things, as we would go to a certain location expecting something to be there. It is the latter that is the problem, not everything is in its place. So, let’s solve this.
Knowing the problem and my goal, I set out to try and find why things aren’t at its place. What I found was that, things are just being place everywhere, but back. Even if they have personally dedicated a spot for these things. I must admit, I have personally been guilty of these crimes. Is like putting your shopping cart back, the police won’t chase you down for it, but rather is from the good of your heart. So are these things just not being returned because no one is constantly policing them? I have hypothesised several other reasons for this:
It is easier to put it in an empty spot
They don’t know where to put this tool
Honest mistake
Especially when you in a stressful environment as well, namely, the workshop and working for my boss, you will tend you make more mistakes, just because we are human. But I have just the way to help alleviate some stress and help you put things back. Let’s finally talk about labelling.
There is an interesting thought I have once. Is someone who knows all the information in the world smarter than a person who just Google everything? The former can recall all the information in a flick of a finger. The latter merely just needs to know where all these information are stored, and find them. Both are able to recall all the information there is, but yet one spends more mental power than the other. I guess there is no definite answer to this question, but preference of which method a person would generally prefer in their life. I personally prefer to be the one who Googles everything. Freeing up my mental for other things that are more important for the given moment. In the same vein for organisation, I don’t want to have to remember where everything on the shelf, I want to know how to find them quickly, spending minimum amount of energy. And this is where labelling comes in.
If everything is already written on the shelf, you don’t have to think for yourself, you don’t have to try and remember everything, you just follow. Is EASY! Therefore, in my workshop, I started labelling all the shelf, in hopes that we can finally fulfil the “everything in its place“ part. And it works, though it did take some time. As my colleagues were so used to just putting stuff everywhere. But after trying to put things back, as it is so easy to now follow where to put things, they have finally see the merits of everything in its place. I had help them realised the power of staying organised rather than just keeping everything in your head.
Labelling also solves another issue that commonly plagues companies, communication. As a lot of times a conversation that is said might not be effectively communicate to other party. So then, as the project continues, both parties starts to get confused as to why the other are making such weird decision and doing things they aren’t expecting. But if they have communicated effectively at the first place, this won’t happen. So, by labelling, you are effectively communicating to everyone that this is the spot for these things. No one could ever get confused, and even newbies can come in and understand that there is a spot for everything and everything in its place. Labelling is one of the most effective communication method.
However, there is no point labelling if no one can see the labelling. Therefore, for some of the cardboard boxes, which I can’t be certain which side the other people would put the box in. I labelled all 6 sides of it. Though it might not look aesthetically pleasing when the box is taken out. But this would serve its purpose very well, making sure the thing could always be found and be back at its place all the time.
To expanding this principle of labelling, I have to talk about how one of my colleague does wood working. He would build a prototype and make the final product based on that prototype, which isn’t a big issue by itself. However, the issue lies in that he would constantly measure the prototype with a ruler and checking if the final product is right to the prototype. This raised a big red flag in me. Just label the measurement! Measure once, and be fine. By measuring over and over again, you introduce human error, as not all measurement you take will be the same. And what if the prototype is dropped, now everything you build after will be off, but the label won’t come off! After seeing this, I even started labelling all the planks I have cut. This helps with assembly a lot, and trying to follow engineering drawing.
Though I now need to give credit to back to that colleague for one thing he does well of labelling that I never thought of before. You know draw a fine line for measurements, and how you always can’t find that line afterwards? My boss had definitely encountered this problem many times before. As all the fine lines he draws, he would circles it. Not compromising the accuracy, but rather making it easier to find.
Another way I have use labelling is with version number of parts and alignments. As during development phase, there is so many similar looking parts, it makes it hard to keep track between 2 parts when they are so similar. Therefore, to solve the ambiguity problem. Every part I print from now on, I would include a version number on the part. Also for alignment, to find the true center, I would just print a center line on the part to indicate center. Save having to measure with hand and introducing more human errors.
