Newly qualified - am I taking to long?

[Jessica92]

Hey sweets, I've recently completed a nail course and have been doing nails for roughly 4 months. I've been doing it from home and have set up at nice desk. I've been getting good business and have got a few regulars, but I'm worried that my times are slow and I they haven't improved enough. It takes me roughly 2 hr to do a full set w/ gel polish and same time for infills w/ gel polish.

I'm not trying to get a ridiculous time but my aim is to get down to 1 hr 30. How long did it take you to get your times down?

 

[Trinity]

Sounds about right, probably took me a year or more to bring my time down. At the moment your in the 'concious competence' stage, (Google the 4 stages of learning) - this means you have to fully concentrate, once it becomes second nature your times will come down. You are also at that stage where you are seeing your mistakes more clearly so will be spending time rectifying those, you wouldn't have seen them before.

You might find your time goes up soon, that's when you know you're starting to crack it and the perfectionist kicks in, it will come back down again

 

[Kuredute]

There is nothing wrong with your time - first 6 months it was the same for me 1h45min to 2h (manicure with gel polish). After that it got better and better, after 1 year of working I was able to do it within 1h5min and infills 1h20min - for me it was big hoop. After that it gets faster really slowly. It's good you have set 1h30min goal for your self - aim for that. What made me work faster was my clients when I had bookings back to back - you know you have that much time to do this and you have to move fast to get it done yet keep quality.
I agree with Trinity - you should be getting faster soon. Hang in there!