Glowforge
Productivity Tips

Today I'm going to teach you some things I've learned along the way that have helped me work smarter not harder in my Glowforge business!

Glowforge Software Tips:
To open your Glowforge software go to app.glowforge.com
If you're ever looking for a file that maybe you did a long time ago that you can't find you can scroll down and click on view all and then go up to the top right where it says search by name and then the Glowforge will pull up any files that had that name.

Here is a link to all of the Glowforge Key Commands

If you ever find that your app is running slow a good thing to do is clear your cache. If you're on a Mac to do that you're just going to hold down command shift and then R. To clear your cache on a PC hold down control and then press F5.

Material:

I like to avoid wasting material whenever possible. For this example, I would get a lot more prints with this layout than if I just line the strawberries up in a row.

When cutting in bulk I like to put all my designs into one file and then upload that file to the app. I've noticed that the Glowforge app sometimes gets slow and buggy if you copy and paste too many times so I like to do it this way.

If I'm creating a bunch of new designs at once that are all being printed on the same material I'll print them all at the same time. Then I'll see which designs need editing, and then I'll edit them all at once, and then cut them all again, instead of just doing one at a time.

Another way to avoid wasting material is to use draftboard or a cheap material to create your first prototypes or if you just want to check the size of something print it out on a regular sheet of paper and see if you like the size.

If you're having to do multiple runs of something, you'll want to cut only the parts that you absolutely need until you're happy with the fit. I only cut out the bottom of the heart at first because that's the part that needed to fit inside of the base. Printing the entire heart a bunch of times would have been a big waste of material.

Create designs a bit bigger than you actually want them. For example, when designing this puffin I made his feet a bit large to account for kerf which is a material loss caused by the Glowforge's laser beam.

Ii find it helpful to do the tasks that I'm not excited about first thing in the morning to get them over with. For example, if I have to glue earrings that day I'll do that first.

If you're cutting or scoring acrylic you can actually remove tape from the top and bottom and put a thin layer of cardboard behind it to prevent scratching. Cereal cardboard actually works great for this. That way you're not having to peel off tape from a bunch of individual pieces. It's always smart to do an assembly line technique instead of doing anything one at a time.

I like to save all my project ideas in an app called Asana.

Label makers are also great for organizing materials and tools. Organizing the materials that I use for different projects together in bins has been such a time saver. For example, I have all the materials that I used for painting earrings in the bin labeled "Paint."

Thanks for reading!

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