The folks over at This Week in Photography (aka TWIP) had a post earlier this week that gave a suggested checklist to follow when unboxing new gear. As you all know how much a fan of checklists I am, I started giving this some thought about what sort of unboxing strategy would work best in my own patterns of gear management and setup.
Then toda at work, we got in 23 new computers. This means we now have:
- 23 CPU’s
- 23 Monitors
- 23 keyboards
- 23 mice
- 23 VGA cables
- 23 USB cables
- 23 power adaptors
- 46 power cords (one each for the computer and monitor)
- and 46 boxes (one each for the computer and monitor)
- 23 Reinstallation CDs
- 23 Owners Manuals
We needed a strategy! So, we opened three of the boxes, took all the acouterments out. With three boxes now empty, keyboards began piling up in one, power cables and adaptors in another, then mice and VGA cables in the third. It became an assembly line of sorts. Thank God we had a tech room to sort it all out. By the end of the day, all but the first three boxes were cleared out. Tomorrow, the switch will be set up so that these can all be prepped with our standard image over the weekend and we’ll have 23 new happy end users (that’s what computer geeks call everyone else in the world). Then come the new laptops… *sigh*
I belatedly thought I should have taken a picture of the before, during, and after. Instead, you’ll just get an end result tomorrow. (It looks kinda cool after all was said and done!)
The point today though, is that with a checklist and a strategy, you can make pretty much any task go easier. You will get more consistent results with whatever the task is, and the chances of being able to repeat your results will also increase with practice. So, make sure you are always practicing your technique, because the same concepts hold true to photography. Thanks to the good folks over at TWIP for the creative genesis for this post today. Happy shooting all and we’ll see you back here tomorrow (with pics!).
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