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The Efficient Web Designer: Simple Adjustments That Will Dramatically Increase Your Productivity
March 24th, 2008 in Business & Process
by: Matthew Griffin
Web designers can be pretty snooty about efficiency. We all have our little sets of widgets and tools; and we love to look down our noses at the riffraff that hasn't discovered whatever little app we happen to be high on. But through the haze of shortcuts and hacks, I've found that many web designers are actually extremely inefficient. Our tools can help us, but every once in awhile we need someone to pull our noses off the ground so we can see the big picture. With that in mind, I've put together a list of simple adjustments that will dramatically reduce your stress and increase your productivity.
1. Communication is not the Key
Communication is the biggest efficiency killer on this list; and it's the sneakiest. Communication chips away at your productivity block all day until it's been reduced to a worthless mass.
Email is the first culprit in this communication crime against your time. Checking and responding to emails can easily take up half your day if you let it. Don't believe me? Try counting how many times you hit the Send/Receive button a day. Then count the time you lose waiting, responding, and regaining your train of thought. See? You're an email junky and you didn't even know it. Fortunately, there's an easy fix that doesn't involve rehab (except in extreme cases). Only check your email twice a day. Don't even look at your inbox unless it's time to check email. Also, avoid checking it first thing in the morning. Try 11AM before you go to lunch and 4PM before the end of the day. Read and answer all the emails in your inbox at those times and then shut it down. Oh, and in case you're worried, your clients won't even realize you're doing this. I promise.
Chat and IM are similar to email because they divide your concentration and drain your time. Don't use them—It's that simple. Clients and friends can call or email. I know how easy chat is, and how convenient. I've heard it all and it's not worth it.
The final communication adjustment you need to make is in the client meeting area. Some clients want to meet about everything and talk all day long. You just can't do this. When a client asks for a meeting, do everything you can to convince them to compose an email with their questions or, at worst, turn the meeting into a phone call. Face-to-face meetings should be a last resort. The only exception should be the initial meet-and-greet meeting. It's important that you make a personal connection with your clients, but after that, there are very few reasons you should have to meet again.
2. Limit Client Options
One of the biggest mistakes a creative worker can make is providing a client with too many options. Contrary to what you may believe, options drive clients crazy. They also make projects take a long time. On average, you will add a week to a project for every set of three or more options you present a client.
When you create a new design for a website, only design one. Spend time explaining why you designed it the way you did and why it will help your client be successful. If you're a decent designer, you will rarely have a proposed design rejected. When you're designing a logo, just do one. When you build a Flash animation, just do one. Notice a pattern here? It's much easier to get approval on one of something than for a client to make a decision.
3. Time Blocking
A random, unstructured approach to your schedule will sap your drive to work and cause your productivity to spill all over the place. This is a tricky one, though, because over-planning can waste just as much time as under-planning. So instead of planning out every second of your day, just designate certain time blocks for certain activities.
For example, let's say you have two websites that need CSS and content. Rather than doing a little bit of CSS and a little bit of content filling; block out a stretch of time where you can CSS your heart out. Your mind is like an engine. It takes a little while to warm up on each activity. If you're constantly shutting it down and restarting it, you won't be very efficient. This ties in directly with the section about communication. If you're constantly being interrupted by email and IM, the time blocking won't have any effect.
The last important perk of time blocking is that it allows you to set aside time for fun. With time blocking, there should never be a moment when you are starring blankly at the computer screen wondering what to do next. If you are, it's time to go home and spend time with your family. Block your time, get you work done, go home. Now, granted this won't work very well if you're working for an employer. But it will give you the opportunity to have more leeway with your time so you can help your company be more successful.
Conclusion
Be sure to read my article entitled as a supplement to the time blocking section. A good flat-rate billing system will encourage you to take full advantage of time blocking and be as efficient and productive as you can possibly be. I'd like to thank Tim Ferriss for turning me onto several of these tips at SXSW interactive last year. They've truly transformed my work.
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