being efficient on a job site means that you're good at your job not being efficient
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all right so the six things that I think are crucial for every electrician that wants to be
an outstanding electrician to make sure that they are being efficient they're bringing in
a lot of money for the company but they're also getting a lot of work done at a high standard are
the following the first thing is keeping your materials tracked and organized I know this is
crazy you probably have bosses always yelling at you about material keep material but think about
this if you've got like stacks of conduit and you know that you have to work right there and people
are like stepping on the Conduit and trying to work and they're like kicking materials around
because you're really unorganized and you've just got stuff everywhere it takes time away from your
day it makes everything that you're doing much slower so you're getting less work done throughout
the day so it's really crucial on job sites to pick a corner get all your material in the
corner and make sure it's not an area that you're actually going to have to do work another thing
is like if you've got outside work and you dump a whole bunch of conduit and it's in Texas it's 110
degrees out in about 50 18 minutes you're gonna burn yourself every single stick of that conduit
that you pick up so make sure that you're putting all of your stuff in the shade somewhere and again
out of the way like keep it close enough so people can use it you're not having to go like 500 yards
to get something manage your material right on job sites make sure it's not in everybody else's way
so just managing your materials making sure that you know where everything is if you've got a job
box when you open that thing up make sure you've got like stacks of of you know wire in one place
and you've got some trays and you've got boxes and everything's well laid out so everybody can
see what you've got because that's another thing with everybody not knowing what's there because
materials just [ __ ] strewn throughout the whole job site but you can't work efficiently because
you're constantly running around asking people do you have this do you know where this is but if you
know where all your materials are and everybody else can see where they are everybody knows what
we have and what we don't have so it's really really crucial to manage the material on your
job sites the next thing that's going to help your efficiency is keeping really good notes
now you can either keep a lot of notes on your plan if you don't like doing that and you're
sloppy you can't keep you can't write like an adult then maybe keep a notebook I've done both
you know when I when I draw circuits out I use colors I actually get a whole bunch of different
colors I have this Avengers marker case it looks like a lunch box I carry on my job sites it's got
pencils it's got everything erasers all kinds of stuff in it but it allows me to keep my plan
really organized and every time I run a home run I Mark that it's been run and I label everything
with if it's an arc fault or if it's dual function if it's GFCI like I keep everything so organized
so that anybody that comes up and looks at my plan they got all the answers that I've got and
on every job I always keep multiple lists so I have one list for all of the materials that
I've used or materials that I need to order it's just generally materials I have another one that's
questions for the homeowner or for the you know the building for the GC of the building and it's
stuff that I just can't answer and I don't know and a lot of those things start to add
up and you'll constantly be forgetting things if you're not writing it all down so I keep a whole
questions list and then as I get things answered I cross every single thing off I'll even make lists
for specific tasks that I need to do for the day and I'll lay my whole day out and as those things
are going I'm crossing every single thing off and I'm writing whose name is doing each thing
too because I will out-think each person as well when I got on a job site I look around at who I
have like I know their skill levels I know what they should do so he's going to do this and then
after he's done with that he's going to go over here and do this and this and this and then I
do that for every single person so I already know next time somebody comes up to me and they're like
hey I'm done it's like all right cool go do this over here and it's efficient right it just keeps
everybody moving and it keeps you checking things off of a list so you're not missing all kinds of
stuff and then the other thing that I keep notes on is change orders right so anytime if you're
dealing with like large scale Custom Homes you're gonna have tons of changes constantly all changes
should should be recorded and you should be able to give your boss at the end of the day end of
the week whatever these are all the changes for work we already did that they made us undid and
go back and change stuff so you need to build them for all of this number three is walking the job at
the beginning of the day and at the end of the day as a job lead you need to know where everything's
at and what things are left hanging what got covered what didn't get covered you need to be
checking people's work and you can kind of do this throughout the day but I always go the very first
like 30 minutes I'll grab my coffee I'm usually there a little bit before everybody else's if
I'm in a commercial environment I've got lifts in the air I'm looking at everything that they
are going to run in and I'm actually imagining them up on lifts I'm thinking about all of the
problems ahead of time so that 30 minutes while we're not getting anything done we're getting so
much done we're getting so much handled so that the rest of our day just flows and there's no
questions everything's already been thought of and then at the end of the day I take another
30 minutes while everybody else is cleaning up or finishing things up and I'm walking through to see
where did we finish all of these things what are the problems that we're going to hit tomorrow what
are the things that when I got my coffee in the morning and I come here what do I need to look at
what do I need to like try to solve when I'm here tomorrow so just that keeps you so efficient it
keeps you knowing everything about your job and really when you're double checking people's work
it doesn't matter how long people have doing been doing work double check everybody and double check
every single thing they've done double check everybody and double check every single thing
they've done follow every conductor they have run and make sure it's stapled where it needs to be
stapled is it at the right height like you need to check everything because even people like me
that have been doing this for a really long time I still miss I still make mistakes I might measure
and think I wrote 18 on a stud for you know the top of a receptacle and I've some reason was like
talking to somebody and wrote 24 and now you got this one receptacle that's like up higher than the
rest so everybody makes mistakes so it's really really crucial that you are the quality assurance
person and you're constantly just double checking looking at things and making sure everything's
all right because ultimately it's going to come down to you anyways it's all going to be your
fault if anything that they did is wrong next up is keep materials stocked in your truck or your
van keep that vehicle stocked up as much as you can I know a lot of times it's hard to get stuff
in there especially if you got an apprentice all their stuff's in there too and you got multiple
ladders and everything but the the more materials that you have I keep these little DeWalt bins that
have multiple different compartments I keep every kind of screw you could ever want I've got every
kind of connector coupling Single Barrel double barrel three quarter half inch one inch two inch
I just keep as much as possible because you're always going to be in some stupid situation you're
like way out in the country and the closest Home Depot is an hour and a half in either direction
and now you have to go take three hours hour and a half there hour and a half back out of your day
where you're not there anymore or The Apprentice you send is not there anymore and that's one less
person now that's doing stuff for three straight hours just because you didn't think to keep your
materials stocked in your van or your truck I recommend keeping as much as you can keep some
extra switches receptacles different colors Decor you know standard single receptacles keep a clock
plug or two just because you never really know you know keep male adapters keep some gfis keep some
wrtr receptacles and gfis keep some bubble covers every kind of breaker just like one
or two you know qo Breakers one or two home line Breakers the stuff that you use most often maybe
keep some Arc faults some dual functions you know like keep as much stuff in your truck or van as
possible it's not even like service techs need to do this more than anybody else because all you're
doing is running into problems every day and being like do I have one of those on the truck can I fix
this problem right now or do I have to go drive to Home Depot or go to the supply house and come
back can be able to do all of this stuff so for service text like this is a no-brainer but even
for construction people because construction you're always doing stuff and you're running
across things you didn't expect and you're like [ __ ] how am I gonna handle this right now uh
maybe I got one of those in the truck you know and if you're lucky enough to be on a job where you've
got like multiple trucks and a lot of people have a lot of different materials you're always like
hey man you got like another roll of wire you got some 12 200 trucks yeah yeah I do so it saved you
but it was because you didn't think about that ahead of time that if you weren't by yourself and
they weren't there you would have to go get that stuff so keep on top of your materials in your van
and in your truck kind of like we said manage your materials on a job site this is different this is
like your all day every day what you're showing up with and I think the more stocked that you can be
the better but don't just leave piles of [ __ ] everywhere in your van because you're not going
to know what you have so now you just have less room and more [ __ ] that you don't know so you're
still wasting time because you didn't realize that you had that two inch nail plate you know hidden
under this thing so you're you're leaving for an hour to go get a damn nail plate that you already
have so just the managing materials is crucial and making sure you're fully stocked up is really
really important number five uh keep everybody working and if that means you not working so that
everybody else is it is going to be so much more efficient to have five people doing five different
things than you doing one thing and five people kind of standing around not really knowing what
they should do and not wanting to come up to you because they don't want to get a hammer thrown at
them because it looks like you're busy don't be so focused in on what you're doing your job as a lead
is to make sure everybody else is good and that they're constantly moving and they're constantly
keeping going so that you have all of these pieces that are being worked at the same time while you
stand back and just manage all of it and if there's time tool up and go to work do some
stuff that you're very quickly gonna have somebody be like hey man soon as you start something it's
always as soon as you start so I'm just gonna call and be like I don't know how to do this can
you help me you know so you it's your job to just go make sure that everybody else is moving you're
kind of like a conductor up here conducting an orchestra so you can't conduct an orchestra while
sitting here trying to like play your clarinet or whatever the [ __ ] play you gotta stop all of
that and realize that you're now leading the team and you're making sure that you're anticipating
me that you're helping everybody else out that you know what everybody's doing and that you're
of help to the whole team rather than you being Mr I'm going to terminate all these Breakers because
I don't want anybody else to mess it up nah dude let them mess it up honestly like train people
let people that don't know what they're doing have a shot to do stuff the only way you got
where you're at is because one day somebody let you put Breakers in and land stuff you stepping
back and sitting there not doing anything so that you can train somebody else and let them do it
it's gonna make you have a stronger team team the more experience you give other people the better
off you're going to be and a lot of times like new journeyman struggle with this they don't step back
and realize that there's three helpers around them just bullshitting and not doing anything
because you're like shoveling and you're hammering and you're doing all this stuff and like me a lot
of times I'm just like yo yo dude stop you got three [ __ ] people 18 year old kids that are not
working they're just sitting there [ __ ] around and they're not gaining any experience these ones
need to learn how to work hard they need to learn how to sweat how to hit the [ __ ] thumb and split
it open with hammer let them do that step back and just teach it's just as valuable and I know
it feels counterintuitive because you're not working and you're the trained one so like you
have an impact on a job site so you need to keep busy sure that's that's true for like super green
hands sometimes you just need to be the one that does it and you tell them go get the coupling you
know and that's their whole job is just going back and forth but at a certain point your inability to
step back and allow them and teach them and train them you know so they can get more experience
you're keeping them down which is also going to be keeping you down you're never going to be able
to be more efficient than you are when you've got a bunch of trained people around you that already
know what to do so just kind of get in that mentality of stepping back every once in a while
you don't have to be the one wearing the tools if you've got a bunch of people around you just drive
the team and make sure everybody's doing what they're supposed to and finally number six you've
probably heard me talk about this copious amounts learn how to shift gears so there's Gears of this
[ __ ] because I haven't figured that out already there are some jobs where you've got so much money
into it that sitting and being really slow and meticulous and making sure everything is beautiful
matters far more and there are jobs where you don't have very much in it and you're just trying
to fly through and make stuff happen so speed is more important and maybe the environment like the
the Aesthetics of what you're doing don't actually matter because it's somewhere that nobody's going
to see anything so you don't have to be like pretty you know and inspector's never going
gonna like judge your prettiness but there's this Balancing Act between speed and quality and you
have to start learning how to shift gears and know when like dude inspectors coming in 20 minutes we
need to wire this entire house let's go just go you know like there's this speed that needs to
happen sometimes and it's not I'm not sitting here saying don't care about quality I'm saying that
to prioritize the slow meticulous quality and the fast getting way more done in a less you know in a
quicker time there's a balancing act and sometimes you might be on a really meticulous thing but like
all of a sudden you got steel workers that are coming in and they need to take the whole area
and you were supposed to be done with your thing and it's just like something just popped up let's
go stop everybody get off what you're doing let's go let's Hammer this out you know so there is a
reason don't ever let somebody tell you oh you should never be fast you should always only be
slow and meticulous that's not not true those people are just up their own asses about oh I'm
quality and I do such good work shut the [ __ ] up man you're slow and everybody talks about it
behind your back like there is there is this need to be able to be fast and efficient and the only
way that you're gonna find efficiency is if you can balance both of these things and know when to
apply them and what it does as a byproduct is it allows you to find your speed your natural pace
at which you go because you're going to find that doing pretty work is really admirable sure a lot
of people like looking at pretty work but also doing things really fast and getting through a
ton of stuff in a day is also super admirable but getting through a ton of stuff and it none of it
working as often happens is not admirable taking so much time to charge a customer 30 hours for
something it could have been done in four hours so you just charge them out to ask for something that
you didn't need to or lose using the company so much money because you could have done it in four
hours and build this thing but because you just like you were just chilling all day long now you
lost the company and they just lost money on the job it both of them have these admirable things
about them but both of them have pitfalls and so to understand where that needle needs to be is
your job and if you can understand by yourself knowing when to shift gears and get everybody
else around you to shift gears you're going to be able to be a lot more efficient you're going to
keep making a lot more money you're going to do great work and you're going to do it quickly and
that's what we want right like a customer doesn't want to have to pay fifteen hundred dollars for a
300 job but also if you produce a 300 job that is a fifteen hundred dollar looking job the phones
are not gonna stop ringing you all are going to get so much work so we're not out here just
trying to waste people's money we're trying to do a job do it right do it well and do it at a price
that's like respectable and reasonable make money but don't charge people like an ungodly amount to
do something because then you're just an [ __ ] and you're being greedy and it's not necessary
all right so that's my six please let me know in the comments below uh if I missed anything
if you think that there's things that are more important less important how you do things if you
disagree with me any of it love your comments love you crazy people I'll see you next one