I never really liked the old adage "...work smarter, not harder" LOL! For some reason, it always rang a bit cheap to me and sounded cliché.   But I recently made a small change in my production process (shared below) that seems to really be helping with production time and improving quality, so I thought I'd share and also ask all of the other Makers in this community if they have a small but mighty tip you'd consider sharing, that you'd consider "working smarter"... ____________________________________________________________ Calling all Artists/Makers in the group....please share some tips or tricks you've developed in your production process that may help others to think about what small changes they could make to work smarter, and increase their productivity or even decrease their costs. ____________________________________________________________   My personal "working smarter" tip: I work in stained glass and solder, and I have always used the standard soldering iron tip that was included with my basic iron (3/16" wide). It always worked well for me, but I did know that other artists who work on large scale projects will use very large irons and tips to increase working temp, etc. So last week I was needing to replace my solder iron tip and decided to upgrade to a slightly larger tip (1/4"), thinking it might help me to get a smoother bead of solder on my work.   (Note: not my project pic, just for reference.)   WELL...not only did I get a smoother bead of solder, but the time spent on each of my items was slightly reduced (more even heat distribution). Not a lot but over the course of a full day of soldering, it seemed like I was so much more productive. I don't think I'd go back to a smaller iron tip unless I change the size of my core products. I'd love to hear from other Square Sellers in this Community if they have more "Working Smarter" artist tips... ... View more