The more you hurry, the more you lose time

People think that when they hurry, they’re really progressing when in reality they’re just setting up a traffic jam in the pipeline.

Here’s how it goes, you get a job, it’s instructions are incomplete, you suggest maybe we should wait for clearer instructions, you’re told no, we need to hurry, you do the work, it’s aligned with what was asked… except it needs to be changed because you get new info that changes many things in the layout.

OK.

Do we have the rest of the information?

Not yet, but let’s do this first so we can hurry with this piece.

Shouldn’t we wait to have everything so we can do it.

No. Let’s do this now and do the rest when it gets here.

Ok…

You do the revisions, validate with people, get the Ok of two people that don’t have a final say in things, revisions from a third person. Then more new info comes in… more changes.

Ok…

Who else has to see this artwork?

Not sure.

Shouldn’t we wait so we can make use of better time and focus on projects that are also pending.

No. We need to do this now. We need to hurry.

But we don’t have all the information or all the feedback.

That doesn’t matter. Let’s do this first, so we can get some of the workout of the way so when we have to hurry, we can.

This is the second round of revisions and we don’t even have all the info or all the feedback.

Don’t be difficult.

Ok…

Revisions made, validated with the three people who’d already seen the layout. Two can’t agree on the font, two can’t agree on the color of the background, everyone thinks a different aspect should be tweaked, still the client hasn’t seen the layout and you’ve already worked on this piece for about 20 hours combined between all the people who are working on it. You send it. There’s a third round of revisions because the owner that needed to see the layout finally shows up and is asking why the hell X, Y and Z were done, new dates, new offer information, new mandatories, legals are still pending.

Ok, let’s do the revisions. We need to hurry.

But we still don’t have all the information or all the feedback.

You creative types are all the same.


Sigh......

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Suggestion: Think twice when you think you’re really hurrying.