Thursday, July 26, 2012
How to Get Work Done Quickly by Not Being Perfect
lifehack.org: The problem with working to perfection is that it causes stress that limits your productivity. You need to get the work done, it needs to be done well — but your focus on getting it perfect causes your anxiety to increase. How can you get the work done quickly…and do it well?
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6 comments:
This seems like an efficent theory on working faster. It does seem like your stress level would not b so high but the only thing I am skeptical about is how one would time manage so that they have enough time in the end to fix things. Plus, I don't think this work method works for everything such as achitectural drafting.
THIS! So much this!! The author gives a great explanation of the concept of making multiple passes on a project rather than taking one extremely stressful and potentially perfect pass. I completely agree with this concept, although I can see how in some circumstances it may not be the best approach. On projects where you only have one chance to get it right or if there are no do-overs, then moving quickly the first time may not be the best idea.
However, in most cases, I agree that completing a task and then going back to refine it is a far superior work style.
I think this article makes an interesting point about productivity that can easily be applied to theatre. I have found myself several times spending so much time on a single piece of scenery to make it absolutely perfect, that I run out of time to do another piece that is equally or more important. This also reminds me of the “don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good” quote. I’ve also found that at certain points it makes more sense to just do a 4 hour project and then spend an hour fixing mistakes, rather than spending 2 hours planning and then attempting the 4 hour project. It is necessary to keep in mind though, that despite this working for some things, others need careful planning, otherwise irreplaceable materials and time will be lost as is often the case with theatre.
I completely agree with the article; if we always strive to be flawless, we will always be disappointed and never live up to our expectations. We need to settle for being very good, and aim to be at our best, but we also need to know when to stop and let our work be as good as it will get without being over-worked. Sometimes, it is our best work that has been left alone before being over-evaluated and edited into a mess. This is especially true of artwork. After too much time of looking at apiece, the artist begins to see the minuscule flaws in everything and will ruin a perfectly lovely piece trying to fix it.
I think the most relevant point I can bring up is that one David Boevers told me today that a shop he once worked at lined up tape measures in a row to determine which one was off. This dedication to perfection is, unfortunately, very often necessary in the theatrical world. Most tasks don't require the total precision that theatre construction can. Even some parts of theatre construction don't require perfect precision. But for the ones that do it really really counts. Obviously the author has a point that for most tasks the need for absolute precision is extraneous, but in theatre, where every scrap of material counts, it's a necessary headache.
The idea of working on something until it's done and THEN going back to fix mistakes is actually a very useful idea. It prevents someone from over-analyzing work too early on and also provides the person more of a feeling of accomplishment seeing more done in a shorter amount of time. It's similar to spell-checking: when you're done with a document you go BACK and look it over for mistakes. With this method, you go BACK and look it over for much larger mistakes relating to content, not details per se.
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