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Sunday, August 16, 2009

Lies

As the old saying goes there are three types of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics…

Over on the left there you will see a page element titled 2009 Totals. I originally got the idea from Patricks Hobby Shed. So last year I started keeping track of how many things I’ve painted. It was kind of fun to keep track of how much I actually cranked out.

So this year I added “figures purchased”… This was to keep track of how many toys I actually buy over the year and to be able to compare it to how much I’ve painted.

I’ve been doing pretty good so far – painting far more than I’ve purchased… well… up until a couple weeks ago….

To date I have painted 601 foot, 100 mounted, 2 vehicles, 3 artillery pieces, and 5 buildings or strongholds – these are all for 28mm figures. Up until last week I had purchased 366 foot, 61 mounted, 3 vehicles, 6 guns. A fair chunk of them are GW plastic figures I picked up off of ebay.

I’ve finally updated the figures purchased after the big ancients sale at Rafm and an order to the the Sentry Box. I’ve now, to date, purchased 825 foot, 142 mounted, 9 Vehicles, and 7 artillery pieces…. Oi! If I manage to not buy any more stuff this year I think I’ll be able to catch up and paint more than I’ve purchased by the end of the year. Of course since I started the year with a considerable amount of unpainted led and plastic I was hoping to have painted a lot MORE than I purchased…

The totals also don’t include figures I have received in trade – for either stuff I’ve traded away or in trade for figures I’ve painted for others… should it? Should I also keep track of figures I trade away then? Included in the painted totals are figures I’ve painted in trade for figures received…

I’ve seen some others that do similar things, like Neldoreth’s at An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields. He’s taken a slightly different approach that I really like – instead of purchased and painted he’s just kept track of Unpainted Figure Totals. I’d like to do something similar, perhaps an annual figures painted vs. figures unpainted total – broken down by period/scale/etc.

We shall see…
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6 comments:

  1. kokigamiAugust 16, 2009 at 9:20 PM

    funny, I was just trying to figure out how to do that stat thing. Figured adding it to my blog, might keep me honest on the purchases and focused on the pile. So, wanna tell me how you do it? Is is a ready made widget or gadget, or is it home code of some sort?

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  2. timAugust 16, 2009 at 10:40 PM

    I just did it with a text box... under customize - layout - page elements - add a gadget - text.... then I just edit it when ever I'm doing a painting update or bring home some new toys...? Hope that helps...?

    It was kind of working for me... right up until Rafm put all there ancients stuff on sale and I decided to build five successor armies for a campaign next June...

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  3. jmilesrAugust 17, 2009 at 4:24 AM

    I'm planning on adding a similar "production vs inventory" aspect to try and keep me focused on completing projects vs adding to my "in-process" list. My wife suggested I also track a metric of hours spent on wargaming vs hours completing my "honey-do list". I thought about that for a bit and then realized there are just some things that are too dangerous to know.

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  4. TimAugust 17, 2009 at 5:34 AM

    I'm struggling with a similar problem. At first my list of unpainted stuff was huge. So huge I had to break it up into projects. This helped with clarity but the length was still too much. I've since decided to list just the current projects I'm working on but it seems I'm too over the place for even that to work. I need 27 hour days and a lot more focus.

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  5. AnonymousAugust 17, 2009 at 4:53 PM

    Performance measures are conceptual technologies--they shape what we see and how we see it through the selection and structure of the numeric indicators.

    So what purpose do you want the numbers to serve? To show off you amazing productivity? Then chart numbers painted.

    To guilt you into not buying anything more? Then show number of unpainted figures.

    To track inventory? Then use a database program, not your blog.

    Bob in Edmonton

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  6. kokigamiAugust 19, 2009 at 6:35 PM

    yes, that helps. Seems too simple, really. I had expected some coolness interface between your blogger account and a google gadget. But simple works for me. Now to assess my purpose in such a list. Guilt. Yesterday I went and spent a hundred bucks on miniatures. I am not even sure what I am getting. They were listed by the pound, mostly. I will throw something up on my blog about it though, rather than rant in your comments..

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