I hate to do this because I genuinely love the time I get to talk to people and help via email. The problem is that I'm running into time management problems. I get in excess of 300 emails a day. I get 10-20 phone calls per day. Between managing the phone, email, shipping, ordering, paying bills, doing tax stuff, assembly of product, design etc.. etc... I am sending myself to an early grave and slowly going broke in the process.
I'm going to try to alter my schedule a little.
Email: 3 Hours/day
Phone: Available 9:00 -12:00
That gives me a solid 6 hours of uninterrupted time to work on projects that are incredibly difficult to make progress on while answering the phone, answering email etc....
Email Guidlines: One of the problems with email, is that I tend to get complicated groups of questions. Answering an email leads to more questions and more emails. I'd love to help people but I just ask that you use the forum first, and see if one of the local experts can set you straight first. Mike P has a handle on most of the technical stuff. He and other Senior Shacksters can easily point you in the right direction.
I will also be listing more build guidelines. I've found that they don't slow the emails, if anything they increase the numbers of emails which is surprising (at least it was to me). You would think the more information I'd put out, the fewer questions would be needed but most people want some hand-holding and want reassurance that they are making the right choices. That is cool.... I understand. My time is limited though so I just ask that you be respectful of that and follow the email guidelines below.
While I'm on the subject of documentation, I DO NOT have cut-sheets for any of the builds. I've found cut-sheets problematic in that everyone wants to do their build a little different. That is the spirit of DIY anyway so drive on! I also took some heat for one of my cut-sheets being wrong and causing a guy to have to throw out $25 worth of MDF. Hey.... I'm one guy. I can only do so much so no cut-sheets. You have to check your own napkin drawing and measure twice, cut once.
For now if you want a quick email answer there are some tricks to asking good questions:
#1. Keep it simple. If you write a 5000 word essay I'm going to delete it as quick as possible.
#2. One question per email. Multiple questions are best handled via phone calls where we don't end up trading email back & forth for 5 days. Alternately, start a post on the forum and some of the Senior Shacksters can help. If there are any unanswered questions, then I'll be glad to help but do your due diligence first.
#3. Look on the forum, documentation, and web site first for answers. I put information out on the forum so that people can follow Inventory situations, product announcements etc...
#4. Don't expect me to remember what I answered in earlier emails. My brain is scrambled half the time from doing five different things at once. I don't remember my kids names when I get home from work so I won't remember your subwoofer build.
#5. I'm happy to give advice but if you don't plan to follow it, please respect my time and don't bother asking. You can get plenty of opinions on the forum.
I may sound like a grump, and sometimes I tend in that direction but I'm trying to get my schedule onto something that is sustainable. I have a particularly busy next 6 months so I'll try running the above schedule for 3-4 weeks and reevaluate the situation. If anyone has input, I'm all ears. Just don't expect an answer after noon.
Kevin Haskins
Exodus Audio
06-05-09, 12:50 PM
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