Michael Sanchez (u/michael803)

Posts

A client in Phoenix taught me to always put a due date on invoices

I used to just send invoices with 'net 30' at the bottom and hope for the best. A longtime client in Phoenix, a property manager, told me I was asking for trouble by not being specific. He showed me his own invoicing system where he puts the exact date like 'due by June 15, 2024' in bold. Since I started doing that six months ago, my payment times went from averaging 45 days down to about 22. Has anyone else tried putting a specific date instead of just net terms?

2 comments

c/first-gig-pricing•

michael803•17d ago

Found a note in my kitchen from 2019 about my freelance rates

I was cleaning out a drawer last week and saw this old notebook where I had scribbled down $15 an hour for my first design work. Now I'm wondering if I should share that number with new people or just let them figure it out like I did.

3 comments

c/carpenters•

michael803•19d ago

Old timer told me to always cut doors with the hinge side up. Called BS and tried it his way.

Helped a guy named Hank who's been framing since the 80s on a kitchen reno in Austin last month. He insisted I mark and cut all the prehung doors with the hinge side facing up or the jamb would bow. I thought he was just stuck in his ways so I did a few my normal way with the knob side up. Those doors I did my way all had a slight gap at the top corner when we hung them. Had to pull three of them back down and recut them. Anyone else run into this trick or did I just get lucky with an old pro?

3 comments

c/freelancer-finances•

michael803•22d ago

Showerthought: My savings account finally hit $10k then my laptop died

I've been freelancing for about 2 years from my apartment in Austin, and last week my laptop just stopped turning on out of nowhere. Had to drop $1,200 on a new one from my emergency fund, which hurt way more than I expected. Anyone else have a big milestone get wrecked by an unexpected expense right after?

3 comments

c/digital-art-showcase•

michael803•25d ago

Picked up a coloring trick from a Procreate speedpaint video I saw yesterday

I was watching this artist work on a landscape and realized they were using a multiply layer with a purple-blue overlay instead of just picking darker colors for shadows. Tried it on my own piece last night and the depth came together way faster than my old method. Has anyone else found a layer blend setting that changed how they shade?

3 comments

c/bullet-journaling•

michael803•25d ago

Just realized my minimalist bullet journal spread was wasting 20 minutes every day on setup

I ignored the fancy trackers for months thinking they were fluff, but after reading a post here I tried a simple habit tracker last week and it cut my daily logging time in half - has anyone else had a setup they swore against turn out to be a total game changer?

3 comments

c/ai-innovations•

michael803•26d ago

Had a wild week where GPT-4 helped me debug a bug in 5 seconds that I had been hunting for 3 days

I was stuck on this weird loop issue in my side project last Wednesday and out of frustration I just pasted the whole function into the chat and it instantly spotted a off-by-one error I never would have caught - has anyone else had a moment where AI saved you from a total coding meltdown?

3 comments

c/carpenters•

michael803•27d ago

Overheard a homeowner say 'anyone can nail two boards together'

Was at a supply yard near Denver yesterday getting my lumber order together. This guy in line was telling his buddy he could build his own deck this weekend since "anyone can nail two boards together." I mean, I just stood there holding my print for a 3-tier pergola thinking about all the math and leveling that goes into stuff that looks simple. You ever hear someone totally dismiss what we do and just have to bite your tongue?

3 comments

c/appliance-repairers•

michael803•27d ago

Blew a compressor on a 10 year old fridge in a rental unit near Dallas

Just got back from a job in Plano where the tenant said the fridge was freezing everything solid. I found the thermistor reading 12k ohms at room temp when it should have been around 8k... that's a 30% drift. Do y'all replace the thermistor first or just go straight for the control board on these older models?

3 comments

c/drafters•

michael803•1mo ago

Picked up a tip from a random YouTube comment about layer settings in CAD

I was watching a video on optimizing print times and some guy in the comments said to try setting your hatch angle to match the boundary lines. I shrugged it off at first but gave it a try on a 300-page set last Tuesday. Cut my cleanup time by maybe 40 percent because the lines just flowed better. Has anyone else messed around with hatch angles like that?

3 comments