Advise for Architect / Contractor

D

deesee

0
Hi all,

I've just picked up David's Book and read it over the weekend spent some time today trying to implement this.

(I'm using Things on Mac and iPhone).

I am an Architect and General Contractor practicing in L.A. I'm a one man show with no staff and no employees. I do all of the design work, drafting, and permit pulling myself. I then hire subcontractors to do the work, but personally manage the construction itself, including scheduling, material orders, payments, etc, etc, etc.

I'm a busy guy needless to say. However, I only do one project at a time so at least I don't have to worry about two projects.

Ok, so my question is this: How do I handle setting up the projects for the overall construction project itself?

For example:
1. I have to produce the construction documents. That's a project with a gazillion tasks in and of itself.
2. I have to handle the city permit process. This has a lot of actions, some that depend on actions from Step 1 above.
3. I have to manage the construction process. Same as 1 and 2.

My thoughts were to set up multiple project folders. For example, one called Construction Documents, another called Permits, etc.

Is this advisable or is there a better way?

How do you handle dependancies across projects?

What about action steps that are next from all three projects that need to happen at the same time. I can't go to building department, visit a supplier, and draft at the same time.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I'm looking for help so I don't re-invent the wheel and perhaps save some time to boot.

Thanks all!

Danny
 
deesee;73427 said:
How do you handle dependancies across projects?

What about action steps that are next from all three projects that need to happen at the same time. I can't go to building department, visit a supplier, and draft at the same time.
Click to expand...

I'd handle dependencies across projects by placing the dependent actions on hold until the first action was completed.

As far as your question about action steps it's not so much that they all "need to happen at the same time", its that they can all happen independently.

In this case it's a matter of making sure they are all on the right context lists, and looking at those lists and trusting your gut to pick one.

Going to the building department and visiting a supplier might both be on an @errands or @around_town list, while drafting might be @office.

- Don
 
Mindmaps

Hi Dan,

Im a structural drafter and I use Mindmanager with an addon called Resultsmanager. This has worked well with me. I setup one project per map. Most of the jobs I do are for a post tensioning engineers. So I then break the job up into different pours and then by the drawings themselves. I have created different collections of actions depending on what plan has to be done that I can drag into the map. I also can setup dependencies through Mindmanager and Results manager uses these. For example I cant start doing pour 1 until I have completed setting up the xrefs for the drawing.

If you want to have a look at map etc let me know. sviney at svcads.com

Regards,
Scott
 
Hi all,

Thanks for the great tips and advise. I've never heard of mindmanager until now, but I will check it out to see if I can use it.

Thanks all!
 
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