Originally published in The Point: Issue 52

Article by Ryan Ouellette or Precision Body Arts in Nashua, NH.

So you’re back from Conference. Now what are you going to do
with what you learned? I have always found it challenging to take
what I’ve gotten out of Conference and incorporate it into my studio
effectively. I’ve been going to Conference for eight years, and every
year I come home with a laundry list of ideas. Honestly though, not
many are finished before I lose my motivation. My main problem
is that I try to tackle them all right away instead of focusing on one
and seeing it through to completion. There is so much information
available at Conference that you can easily get overwhelmed. Trying
to take all the information from the classes, round tables, and expo
and turn it into immediate change in your studio is an easy way to
melt your brain, or start a fight with your co-workers. Trust me; I
know.

This year, I tried a different approach. I put together my usual list
of ideas and changes that I would like to enact, then ranked them by
what I thought would be the most beneficial to my studio as a whole.
I also tried to get a good idea of how much time, effort, and money it
would take to complete each task. It really helps when you can think
step-by-step what it would take to improve a certain aspect of your
studio or your procedures. You might be surprised that the biggest
impact could come from faster, smaller improvements. I tend to
over-think things a lot in my studio. Way too many supplies, way too
many unnecessary steps. My big focus this year was breaking down
why I do what I do, and finding ways to simplify things without
degrading performance. Not all of it will work, and not all of it will
be permanent, but focusing on improvement is important in an
industry that changes so much from year to year.

One of my biggest obstacles is that I’m the only piercer in my
shop, but I have three tattoo artists who share my sterilization room
and decontamination practices. Coming home with a list of “piercing
things” that I would like them to focus on typically means I have
my tattoo staff fed up with me rather than changing their practices
effectively. It’s a good idea to consider what things on your list will be
the most helpful to other members of the studio, and even which ones
will be the most problematic. I decided to start with my sterilization
room because I thought I could improve our decontamination
chain while also making things faster and easier for all of the staff;
a win-win for everybody. I never really noticed that I had all these
extra glove changes and surface disinfects because I was simply doing
things on the wrong counter top or that I had supplies in the wrong
cabinets. When I sat down and thought it over with the information
I picked up at Conference, it was easy to see that I just needed to
move a few things around. Of course, it all seems so obvious now,
after Conference, but immediately after I reorganized the supplies
in my sterilization room, everything got so much faster and more
efficient. It only took me a few hours to move stuff around, but I feel
like it was a big improvement in the overall functionality of a central
aspect of our work week. Now we can zip through our sterilization
work without sacrificing safety or quality. Plus, the tattoo guys can
correctly process their tools faster without getting pissy and without
me staring over their shoulders.

Once I tackled the sterilization room I suddenly got really
productive. I went back to my list, picked another job and followed
it through to completion before starting the next one. I was finding
little improvements I could make all over the place. A lot of them only
took an hour out of my day, and most of them didn’t cost anything.
I switched our shop over from spray disinfectants to wipes and put
wall mounts in each work area for them. I reworked the area where
we keep our general cleaning supplies so our counter girl doesn’t have
to go into the sterilization room to just grab a dustpan or extra trash
bags. I moved the front counter supplies like gloves, baggies, and
hand sanitizer to one central drawer. They’re small improvements
that make the shop much more efficient and make our work day so
much easier. These are things I’ve been telling myself I wanted to do
for months, or even years, but I just never worked out a game plan
to get it all done. Many little things are very attainable and add up to
make a big difference.

For years I’ve been coming home from Conference all energetic
and trying to do ten things at once, just to end up with ten half
finished things that would keep distracting me. After a while you
lose that Conference high and you just go back to the status quo.
This year I realized that having a system can dramatically impact the
amount you accomplish. Then when you get home from Conference
next year you can change it all over again! P