Time for Everything?

 One of the biggest challenges I have had as I operate a bakery from my home is time.  There is just never enough of it.  This is not a foreign concept to anyone.  In this day of convenience food and high speed everything from internet to transportation; we all feel the pull of time and sometimes our lack of managing it.  

Time, or the lack of, is a challenge every week; but this week seemed to be harder than others.  I work Monday - Wednesday as a project specialist for our school district.  Those are also the days that I focus on my school work for my degree.  This usually means that Thursday and Friday are devoted to my bakery; shopping, prepping, and baking for preorders.  Thursday is my prep day while Friday is massive production.  

In any given week I will have 70+ items to produce in one regular home oven.  Timing is the magic that makes it all work.  On a good week I will have all the orders collected and create a spreadsheet to help me see the products I need to make.  Then I can create my shopping list, do the shopping, and start pre-measuring all the ingredients for the Friday production.  Often this includes making up any doughs that need the long ferment overnight on Thursday for the Friday bake.  This week, this is where the breakdown started.  I had committed to donating several items to the high school photography class.  They had started their food unit and had asked for donations to practice photographing food.  Instead of having Thursday morning to shop, I spent it baking to have products for the class.  I dropped everything off to the high school by 10:30 am, and happily agreed to sub for a class for 2 hours.  At the time, that didn't seem like a big deal, I could spare 2 hours.  To be perfectly honest, I love subbing.  I love teaching and being in the classroom.  I will take a sub job anytime I have the time.  Unfortunately time is something I have very little of these days.  It was 1:30 by the time I left the school, and I still had not done any prep.  I rushed home to organize the orders and clean up the mess from the morning's rushed production.  At 2:30 I had to leave again to pick up my daughter for an eye Dr appointment at 3.  We left the eye Dr at 4 pm and rushed to the store to do the bakery shopping for the next day as well as plan something for dinner.  We got home just before 5 pm, and I started something for dinner, than ran to get ready for a 6 pm meeting with my online college classes.  This class lasted for over an hour,  Finally by 7:30 I was ready to start my prep for the next days baking.  

I quickly began mixing up dough that would need to ferment overnight.  This included sourdough bread, bagels, pretzel sponge, and brioche dough for King Cake.  I also had 5 dozen cupcakes to bake so that they could be filled and decorated the next day.  As the bagel and brioche dough would need to chill overnight, I also had to clean out and make room in the fridge for several large baking trays of bagels and a 2 gallon tub of brioche dough.  All this done, it was time to clean the kitchen and get everything set for an early morning production day.  Finally at 11:30 I was ready to head to bed. 

Production day begins at 5 am when I roll out of bed and head to the kitchen.  The oven is turned on, and production begins.  Sourdough is shaped, bagels are boiled and baked, and I begin to mix and form other breads and pastries.  Production day is always a little bit brutal.  The plan is to have everything finished and packaged to be ready for pick up at 5 pm.  12 hours seems like a long time, but it flies by when things are in the oven.  This week, it was not enough time.  While most items were ready by 5 pm, I still had a pie in the oven and a batch of french bread to form and bake.  

By 6 pm I was ready to head out for bread deliveries while m husband stayed home to take care of the pick up orders.  I picked up dinner at 7:30 (because, seriously I was not going to cook one more thing) and was home by 8 pm.  I sat down for a quick dinner and began cleaning the baking explosion that was still my kitchen.  Finally done after 10 pm, I thankfully headed off to bed after 17 straight hours of work.

Weeks like this make me question if its worth it.  Today I had the time to rethink the events of this week and plan what I can do better.  I see even more how important the Thursday prep is in my schedule.  Without it, I am not prepared going into a production day, and I am fighting all day long to catch up, and end up running much later into the night.  Days like this make me wonder why I keep doing this and why I want to make this a career.  While I can't always see it when I am buried in work, I love the joy when someone comes to pick up a product and when my baked goods brings a smile to someone's face.  My heart is happy when a beautiful loaf of bread comes out of the oven. When I am completely and utterly exhausted I remind myself how much I love this job, and look for ways I can improve next time.