2017.05.18 - UPDATE!! - !! HARSH REALITY !!
Had a bit of a gut-check moment yesterday.
I've been keeping most of this build project in my head, and tracking items that needed attention in a mostly organized way.... there was SO much to do, that it really didn't matter all that much the exact sequence of events as long as forward progress was being made.
The tracking of the remaining days to Moab 2018 has been clearly visible in my avatar for more than a year now, and today marks 470 days to complete the project before the event. What that DOESN'T track very well is the amount of actual garage time that I've got to work with between now and then.... and yesterday was the day when MS Excel pulled that into sharp focus for me.
That's right.... basically 1000 hours left if I continue on my current strategy of working 3 evenings per week, plus 1 full weekend day. It's roughly 15 hours each week, limited by my desire for family time and occasional sleep.
The next logical step was to break up those hours and compare them to the amount of work still remaining. The analysis is still ongoing and the spreadsheet is already over 150 lines long... but here's just a flavor of the first 50 lines or so....(Many of the subprojects do NOT have any hours estimated yet):
It sure seems like the work hours required will far outpace the work hours remaining.... I don't have a great trackrecord of estimating completion times for projects, so this whole sheet could be off by MANY multiples of those hours. Clearly, not EVERY project is equally important.... and I can try to claw-back some time in areas that are not 100% essential (stereo, interior, etc) and simply deal with completing those after the big event. I'm just not sure if there will be enough time savings even once that "lifeboat exercise" is completed.
So.... things were a bit somber in the shop last night and while I mulled it over, I just did boring stuff and let my mind wander a bit.... scraping undercoating off the wheeltubs seemed like the perfect assignment for myself.
This is the way they both looked at the beginning....
After a couple of hours, I managed to get one of them cleaned up and looking pretty darn good!:
The one redeeming part of my Excel spreadsheet work, is that it really sharpened my focus on the specific ORDER of events that need to happen in the near term to complete the most important sub-projects. To finish out the frame and running gear (which needs to be done before I can reattach the body and rollcage) I need to find room for a 2 Gallon airtank for both the CTIS system and the ARB lockers. There isn't much room left anywhere so I rolled up some oakboard to the correct dimensions and did test fittings for both a single 2.5 Gallon, and tried the option of two small 1 Gallon tanks.
Ultimately, I still need to fit two full-size batteries somewhere under there....and I'd really like to hide the two air compressors underneath as well since I'm sure they are noisy and I don't want them in the rear bedsides unless I have no other choice.
I'm not giving up hope (yet).... I will work the numbers a lot more, and perhaps sharpening my focus to REALLY stay on task with this list will help me stay efficient and might ultimately keep me on a better completion schedule.
-G
