Quick as *u*k
//An italian version of this article is here
Designers know it, time management is a very precious skill. It is not just about having free time, but moments to run personal projects, doing research or developing new abilities. There are millions of blogs with millions of posts with millions of words written by designers cooler than me that said it better than I ever could. To make long story short, the quality of your work greatly depends on the ability to go outside the boundaries of a given project and to do that you need mental energies and time.
I have been working as motion and graphic designer for big television companies since 2007. Workflows in these companies are quite strict and besides creativity I do a lot of repetitive and standard tasks to assure the onair elements flow. I mean, it is not always like being Sagmeister & Walsh.
This aspect taught me to optimize and dry my processes to produce recurring and boring elements, gaining valuable time and mental energies to use for much better things, or even just to avoid the risk of giving to dead-line a literal meaning. Now that I’m about to become a freelance I think this will be one of the most useful lessons learned. Every project needs preset steps, expect it and you solve half of the problem.
You have to take your time to get organized with your softwares and your project files and tools, in a word: workflow. It is a crucial step that I’ve underestimated for years in the past. I have always read great designers writing about how you should never be standardized, no pre-calculating, no making lists nor spending too much time on the machines ecc. But putting yourself in a state of instinctive caos, useful for a certain types of creative processes, can’t exist without a dose of maniacal order.
I’m not talking about quantum physics, just details, simple things. For example, I always have a list of rendering presets to fit my workflow, my software’s UI are set up according to my needs, when I learn a new software I strive to learn as many shortcuts as possible, I can access to all of my ftp addresses in a few clicks, and so my emails, my fonts and visual archives. These are small things, details. Pains in the ass, complications, problems, often lurk in the details.
It took me time to find my way but it helped me a lot, because I know what I need in terms of time and effort to achieve results.
I assure you that this attitude will positively condition also the way you imagine and so your creativity that, as Munari wrote, exists to solve problems.
Don’t worry, discipline in structuring workflows won't make you less cool. It is not a secret, designers with a bit of experience know it, they have their own maniacal order but it is not a matter which is discussed and shared a lot. I would have really appreciated if I had read something like this at the beginning of my career.
