I’ve been working in the shop non-stop for the past 5 days, including Saturday and Sunday, and I think it’s starting to wear me down. I have a show this weekend in Tennessee and I’m trying to finish up a few more batches of bookmarks and get cutting boards seasoned (oiled). All this is being accomplished in between finishing four built-in DVD bookcases for a customer. I’m leaving for Tennessee on Thursday and I want to get these bookcases installed on Wednesday before I leave town.

When I worked in the corporate world, I was very good at multitasking. Juggling multiple projects all over the country was no problem. However, in my small woodworking shop, multitasking becomes difficult because I run out of space to set all my projects. Many times I have to stop, move, and stack items to make room to perform a task on other items. I tend to sand everything on my assembly bench, so when the bench is covered with items being glued up, I have to find another table to sand items ready for that stage. In other words, space availability dictates what I work on at any given time even though I may want or need to work on something else.

Right now I have bookcases and adjustable shelves drying from the clear coat on one side of the shop, cutting boards drying on the other side on my assemble table, and bookmarks drying on top of my planer. I was working towards this scenario because once lacquer starts going on, I cannot cut anything because of dust getting on everything. I finally got to take a break this afternoon since all I could do was watch the lacquer dry.