It finally had to be done. For the past three months, my working days have been a non-stop push to make deadlines. As such, I’ve made piles of “I’ll get to it when I have the time.” It’s really bad, now. So bad that I’m finding notes to myself from three months ago.
Why is it so difficult to stay a top of the clutter? Because it means making yet another decision after a full day of decisions like:
• What needs to be done first?
• What’s an immediately priority vs. what can wait a few hours?
• Who do I need to phone, or email to move something forward?
• And design choices like what text, color, size, position, background, etc., should be added, removed, moved — because graphic design is more about making decisions upon decisions, than it is about being an amazingly gifted, wildly productive artist
• Plus, what’s for dinner?
Today a lot of old projects went into the trash, too. I treated them like the daily newspaper: if it didn’t get read on day one, it’s no longer new/news. From the trash they were carried to the shredder, which made me think about how to be better organized from the start. Little things like having 2 waste baskets: one for paper that needs to be shredded, and one that gets dumped immediately into the recycling bin — instead of going through everything a second time, at the shredder. But that begs the question, should I be shredding my own paper? Certainly not if I’m serious about growing my company, and using my time more wisely.
Ah, but I do love the sound of decisions made, grinding their way through metal teeth as the motor hums along — closing one door so that another may open.
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