Schedules. Timelines. Proofs. Deadlines. Changeorders. Yuck.
The strange niche occupied by creative professionals is sometimes hard to come to terms with. We are, in effect, whores. We gravitate toward our industries at the beginning because we love doing what we do - say web design, for example. But the young idealistic web designer (I’m gonna change the world with great web design!) will very quickly learn one thing - what we do, what we love to do, is not for us. It’s for the client. We do it for money. The client, that pervert. Yuck.
But that’s the rub - we work for clients. We have to deal with it. And one of the best ways to deal with it is through good, solid project scheduling. Spend some real time at the front end of a project, giving the client a realistic timetable of both deliverables (what is coming from you), and input (what is coming from them - very important!). Police your schedule vigilantly along the way, letting clients know when they have missed deadlines, when their changeorders negatively affect the schedule, and on occasion, when you have slipped on your schedule (try not it do this, it’s bad).
You will find that your projects run a lot, lot, lot more smoothly. Clients stay more happy. And somehow, that translates into you feeling less like a whore. I’m not sure how that last part works, but you’ll have to trust me.
One comment so far.
I totally understand what you are saying, we are like whores. But I like to consider myself to be like a Geisha (like my tattoo), a free artist, I can decide who my clients are. I have the power to say no to a client if it is something I don’t believe in. My dream is to become the next Annie Lebowitz and have the power to pick and choose which magazine to shoot for and competition will be out of the way of my path to my career goals. But until that happens a girl has got to eat, so I do what I gotta do to pay the bills. ho.. hum..
I saw a movie called “The Last Mimzy”, watch it, it may change your view on changing the world. Anything is possible…