How 3D direct modeling and the way I clean my house are related.
Posted by Andrea Giles on Fri, Feb 26, 2010
Yes. That’s right. I clean house the way designers and CAD jocks use KeyCreator 3D direct modeling. How, you say, can these two things be related? Let me explain…
When I get in the mood to clean, you better look out. There is a flurry of dusting, sweeping, mopping, wiping, consolidating, throwing out and organizing. But I’ll be the first to admit. Don’t expect any of this is a logical, progressive, abc-123 order. It drives my husband insane. I think it even drives my pets insane, but at least they can’t vocalize it.
I’ll be in the middle of sweeping the floor when I see a stack of junk mail on the counter—and two on the table. Ah! So, before I forget what I want to do (which is to clean up these masses of paper), I leave a pile of dust bunnies in the middle of the floor. After all, I know I won’t just keep walking past that pile when I’m done with the junk mail. It’s sort of like my sticky note to myself—when you’re done with the mail, finish sweeping.
This process goes on for what probably seems like the entire day to my husband. He walks into rooms filled with piles of this or that, doors ajar and me mysteriously no where in sight. Why? Because I found something else I wanted tackle right away, before I forget…then I can get back to what I was doing which is obviously in mid-process.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the cleaning process Martha Stewart advises. I think most tips tell you to start at the top and work you way to the bottom. Go in order. Don’t stray or you’ll be less productive. Or worse, you’ll end up with a house in more disarray than before you started!
Yeah, right.
I’m also sure this is how some CAD software advises you to design. Go in order. Start at the top and work you way down. You have to do A and B to get to C.
But what if that isn’t how you think? What if you want to start at the top, work you way down, go back to the middle, lather, rinse, repeat? Are you expected to know everything you uncover before you even get started? No one expects to find jelly smeared to the bottom of the chair while you’re mopping. But sometimes you do, so you stop and clean it up before you get back to the obvious task at hand.
That’s why 3D direct modeling works so well. You don’t have to go in order. You hum along until you find something else you need or want to attend to. Then get back to where you were and keep going. With 3D direct modeling, you don’t have to worry about redoing all your work just because you made one small change. You make the change and keep going. Or in my case, you mop the floor, clean up the jelly, and keep going without worrying about leaving footprints all over a wet floor.