Not Up To Your Standard? Work Harder!

July 27th, 2008

People who produce work of a creative variety have a shared experience. Writers, designers, musicians, moviemakers, chefs, painters, et al. typically get into the game of creating for a living because they love to make things. They know what they like. They create because they love the process, the results, and want to make more of it.

Typically in the process of getting started in a creative career, and even in mid-career, you may find what you are creating doesn’t live up to your standards. It may seem like every piece of work you create doesn’t measure up. It looks, feels, sounds, or tastes terrible—at least by your standards. After a while frustration and depression can set in. Many people at this point quit. In the face of adversity they decide they cannot do it—they cannot persevere. They pack up their tent and give up on creating. The frustration of not producing work up to your taste and standards may seem too hard to get through—so you quit and stop working as a creative professional. It is easier to stop than to continue inflicting more pain. The road ahead looks too long to stay on.

Know You Are Not Alone.

This happens to more people than you can imagine.

• Why do they quit?
• Why do they give up?
• Do they not see the light at the end of the tunnel?

They feel they are going in circles and not creating anything of significance. The whole exercise feels like a fruitless effort, and nothing worse than feeling like you are wasting your time.

How to Transcend

So how does someone get beyond this and break through?

How do you break the cycle? It’s rather simple really.

You must do more work.

You must continue to create. Even when you feel what you are creating isn’t up to par. It’s the process that will eventually produce the results you are after. I have had this happen to me more than once during my career. I persevered and continue to work in my creative field today.

I recently came across a video on YouTube featuring Ira Glass from This American Life. He is talking about storytelling, but what he talks about applies to everyone in a creative profession and their career.

I found it inspiring and it’s definitely worth watching.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE&feature=related[/youtube]

Your Prefs, Client Prefs, and Deadlines

July 9th, 2008

Many times in the course of working in a service business one works upon assumptions. You may know background information on a client and can perform many tasks based on what you believe to be your clients’ preferences. These assumed preferences are based on your knowledge of the client, your history with the client, and past behavior of the client. All of these can allow you to make an informed, assumed, decision and carry out a plan, or a series of tasks.

Well recently, I was working in exactly this fashion with a long-standing client. We were looking at hitting a deadline and publishing something by a certain day and time. The assumptions kicked in and long story short something went out the door that was not ready in the clients eyes. It was grammatically and syntactically correct. However, there was content that needed updating, and we did not have access to that information late in the day. So, things were queued up and sent out the door.

The ramifications from this were not severe. However, the amount of work and “triage” needed to resolve the issue were a bit inconvenient. It would have been a wiser move to hold on until the morning.

All of this of course is from the service provider’s side of the equation. From the client side things are very different. There is a deadline to meet and if there is wiggle room it will be used if need be.

So what is the take away?

• Confirm deadlines and deliveries with clients
• If the project is not ready, or you are unsure, renegotiate the deadline if possible
• Always ask if everything is complete with the project
• Get a physical signature, or email from client confirming that content can “leave the building” (We use a sign-off form for all projects, or if time is tight we ask for an email from them that grants permission)

It is rather easy to make sure all the “T’s” are crossed and “i’s” are dotted. Try not to get caught up in the deadline shuffle.

Do you have any tried and true techniques for handling deadlines?

Let me know below.