Hot take: I was overcomplicating my layer management for years

I was working on a set of commercial kitchen plans for a restaurant in Austin, and my CAD file had over 80 layers. A senior drafter I met at a conference last month looked at my screen and just said, 'You're fighting your own system.' He showed me his method, which uses maybe 15 total layers grouped by construction phase, not individual element. It was a total 'aha' moment. Has anyone else had a layer system that was more of a problem than a solution?

3 comments

3 Comments

paul_nguyen3mo ago

That senior drafter's method sounds like a total nightmare for revisions later on.

sarahsullivan2mo ago

Hold up, have you thought about what happens when that senior drafter leaves the company? If his method is super specific to how his brain works, the next person is gonna be totally lost trying to figure out his file. I've seen teams stuck for weeks trying to decode someone's "genius" system after they retired. Plus, if the company switches software later, his custom setup might just break completely. It's a huge risk to tie everything to one person's workflow instead of something the whole team can actually maintain.

troy9963mo ago

But what if his method actually saves time in the long run?