When you're short on time what are some things that help you save time on projects?

I have 1000`s of different time saving "tricks" I employ (other than stripping wire with my teeth), that I use regularly.

one of the most Important is to Always put your tools back where you had them from! it may sound like this takes time to do, but offset this against the time it would take to find X,Y or Z when you used it last in a hurry and forgot where you put it down, I`v lost whole afternoons doing this before.

Always stay in Stock, having to order a part and waiting for it to arrive is a huge bottleneck. rem; it`s better to have and not need, than to need and not have!

when selecting the parts for your job, carry a little box with your list, and put the parts into it to take back to your bench, saves lots of time getting up and down later.

Use Kynar type wire if you do point-to-point wiring, using regular wire that you have to strip, twist and tin for each connection uses Loads of time up when faced with several 100 connections that need to be made, Kynar can be cut and soldered directly.

have some Vero Board precut to match your Breadboard, pin the vero to your bread board in 4 corners and build/test your design, put a sponge on the top of the board, and carefully lift it off the bread board, turn it over and bend the leads out a little and solder it up, you`ll have a working circuit right away, even though it may not look pretty. for IC`s you need to mimic on board seperately, but it`s still faster!

when you`re Really pushed, throw a MCU at it, I keep several types in stock, from little 8 pin chips up to 40 pin monsters and loads in between, a typical example was a friend of mine that needed a cct that made a light come on for 3 seconds when it had power, and then go off and stay off, he was messing aaround for Days with 555 times and transistors and CR time constants etc... and produced nothing, he was in a rush too as he was selling his car, I threw an ATtiny 85 at it and had a working device in less than a minute.

If your workspace allows, get yourself a swivel chair, and arrange All of your most commonly used tools equipment and parts around you in near 360 degrees allowing enough room to get in/out your chair, when I`m working I look like some sort of crazy pick-n-place robot, and I hardly even have to take my eyes of the work to grab what I need next, it`s very efficient.

but the best of all, is to Never allow yourself to get into a position where Time is the issue, I used to have Time related jobs all the while, I hated it! so I decided that in order to carry on doing what I love and enjoy, I had to put my foot down and decline all jobs that had time constraints, and chose to see it as a fault of the Customers that they allowed themselves to get into such a position where they were in a rush, rather than a reflection on Me because I had to put My Name to a rush job, so I turn them down now, and I have Just as much work as I ever did, and still enjoy electronics

That`s about all I have time for today, must dash!

I have 1000`s of different time saving "tricks" I employ (other than stripping wire with my teeth), that I use regularly.

one of the most Important is to Always put your tools back where you had them from! it may sound like this takes time to do, but offset this against the time it would take to find X,Y or Z when you used it last in a hurry and forgot where you put it down, I`v lost whole afternoons doing this before.

Always stay in Stock, having to order a part and waiting for it to arrive is a huge bottleneck. rem; it`s better to have and not need, than to need and not have!

when selecting the parts for your job, carry a little box with your list, and put the parts into it to take back to your bench, saves lots of time getting up and down later.

Use Kynar type wire if you do point-to-point wiring, using regular wire that you have to strip, twist and tin for each connection uses Loads of time up when faced with several 100 connections that need to be made, Kynar can be cut and soldered directly.

have some Vero Board precut to match your Breadboard, pin the vero to your bread board in 4 corners and build/test your design, put a sponge on the top of the board, and carefully lift it off the bread board, turn it over and bend the leads out a little and solder it up, you`ll have a working circuit right away, even though it may not look pretty. for IC`s you need to mimic on board seperately, but it`s still faster!

when you`re Really pushed, throw a MCU at it, I keep several types in stock, from little 8 pin chips up to 40 pin monsters and loads in between, a typical example was a friend of mine that needed a cct that made a light come on for 3 seconds when it had power, and then go off and stay off, he was messing aaround for Days with 555 times and transistors and CR time constants etc... and produced nothing, he was in a rush too as he was selling his car, I threw an ATtiny 85 at it and had a working device in less than a minute.

If your workspace allows, get yourself a swivel chair, and arrange All of your most commonly used tools equipment and parts around you in near 360 degrees allowing enough room to get in/out your chair, when I`m working I look like some sort of crazy pick-n-place robot, and I hardly even have to take my eyes of the work to grab what I need next, it`s very efficient.

but the best of all, is to Never allow yourself to get into a position where Time is the issue, I used to have Time related jobs all the while, I hated it! so I decided that in order to carry on doing what I love and enjoy, I had to put my foot down and decline all jobs that had time constraints, and chose to see it as a fault of the Customers that they allowed themselves to get into such a position where they were in a rush, rather than a reflection on Me because I had to put My Name to a rush job, so I turn them down now, and I have Just as much work as I ever did, and still enjoy electronics

That`s about all I have time for today, must dash!