The Power of One Thing at a Time
One thing I always remembered seeing when applying for jobs was this little line, “Must be able to multi-task.” While I think most people are capable of doing a few things at a time, I don’t think anyone can truly “multi-task”. Who knows, it might just be me, but from personal experience, when I can actually get down to business for a few hours on one project I can accomplish so much more than if I’m jumping between project after project.
The thing is, when you work in-house for a marketing team, there is always a lot going on. As a designer, I do my best work when I can concentrate and focus on one thing at a time. I’m always envious of the people I read about who only check their email twice a day, once after getting to work and once an hour or so before leaving from work. Something like that absolutely would not fly in my office. I can only ignore that ugly little orange Lotus Notes icon in my menu bar for so long before I see that I have five emails all of different little things I need to do. Immediately.
On those rare occasions where I can fire up Photoshop, put on some good music and let the creativity flow for more than an hour, I think I get some of my best work done. And it actually feels rewarding at the end of that session, to sit back and see what I’ve accomplished. Totally opposite from when I am jumping from job to job because deadlines keep changing or someone doesn’t like certain images, etc.
I’ve been staying as organized as I can with my newly adopted 3x5 card system for keeping track of jobs. I’ll probably write more on how that subject is going later on. As well as a software change I am going to try out.
