Rules to Live By

When I arrived home from work the other night, I parked my car and looked over to the passenger seat beside me. There sat a whole bunch of stuff that I needed to bring inside. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I’ve recently moved into a new building which requires a bit more walking (and stair climbing) than my old house, in which I conveniently parked 10 feet from my front door.

As I began to grab all the things that needed to be brought inside, I noticed that the back seat was full of stuff that I needed to bring in as well, including two of my wife’s necklaces. So I continued to jam everything I could into my arms and make my way inside. By the time I got upstairs and unloaded everything, I had successfully lost a glove and tangled the two necklaces beyond recognition. First things first. Retrace my steps and find my glove. After walking all the way back downstairs I found my glove sitting in the lobby of my building. Next up, untangle my wife’s necklaces. I felt like Russ in Christmas Vacation when Clark handed him a beach ball sized clump of lights to untangle. It took me about 15 minutes to finally separate the two necklaces only to realize that each necklace was viciously tangled amongst itself as well (they were really dangly necklaces). All this just to save myself an extra trip down to the car…

I could only laugh when I realized after all that I not only had to end up walking back down to the car, but I lost an extra 15 minutes trying to fix something that was inevitably ruined forever. Looking past my complete day to day laziness, I actually learned two lessons from this.

1. Take your time and do things right the first time.
2. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

When analyzed in their most simplistic form, these two philosophies are merely common sense. Yet, I continually hear about failed efforts by designers and small businesses alike, simply because they’ve chosen to ignore them.

I think it’s in our nature to overlook thinking before taking actions. But, without strategic planning (or in my case, common sense) we’ll just end up back where we started, or worse. If you’re a designer and your completely stuck on a design, retrace your steps. It’s likely that you haven’t fully thought-out the solution before you jumped into the actual design phase. One of the most important elements of design is problem solving. If your designs aren’t solving a problem, then they’re not doing their job. Furthermore, you certainly can’t solve a problem without understanding it first. Stick to your process and do it right the first time. If you don’t, the results will suffer and you’ll end up having to revisit what you should have done in the first place.

Similarly, if you’re working for a small business and you’re wearing multiple hats (as many employees of small businesses do), be sure that you’re not overextending yourself. If you are, you will inevitably end up dropping the ball and missing something that could be crucial to the success of a project. When you water down your talents and capabilities, your doing a disservice to your company as well as your clients. Determine where it is that you excel and focus on those areas. Everything else should be delegated else where.

On a much larger scale, these philosophies (or rules) should be considered in your own personal life. How often do we end up working ourselves into the ground only to come up burnt out or sick. Don’t try to be a hero by helping everyone around you. Take your time and learn your limits. Once you do, you’ll be less likely to cut corners, and you just might notice that life doesn’t need to be so hectic.