Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist

I often write notes to myself. Not because I'm insane (Well...partially because of that) but mostly because writing things down helps me remember  and seeing words in all caps is like a silent yell from my inner self. And it's really hard to ignore my inner self.

I have a few around my desk, "It's only impossible until it's not." and "Complaining doesn't change anything. Action does." 

In February I added "Perfection is the enemy of done." 

And as much as that note yells at me, it’s been a tough lesson to live. 

Confession: I have a thing for Perfection. Or better yet, my personal idea of Perfection. I want things to be as buttoned up, as impactful, and as shiny as possible. If it's a representation of me, it has to be quality. Like Barney's level quality.

However, my problem is that I go miles past Kmart in to Nordstrom territory - which is a very, very good place to be -  but keep pushing, fighting, stressing and obsessing to get to Barney's. And I wear myself the eff out getting there or beat myself up for having not made it all the way. 

And those times I do get there, I’m not sure the store windows are clean enough, or the AC is at the right temp. What if someone thinks the revolving door is completely idiotic? (These are just metaphors of course. I’m talking about work – creating an ad or writing a headline and all that jazz, not building a department store.)

It's not that I'm scared of failing. (Read Mistakes Won't Kill You) And I totally believe in trying as many options as you can and doing multiple versions, and editing and re-editing. (Read Edit, then Edit Again) 

My issue is that I have a really hard time with things not being just right. Even if it’s at 98.9% right – I want that last 1.1%. So I often overthink, overedit, overanalyse, overwrite and pretty much drive myself mad.

Perfection is the enemy.

When you have an 8 a.m. deadline, Perfection will have you up all night, drinking unhealthy amounts of 5 Hour Energy and ignoring your body’s pleas for basic things like sleep and bathroom breaks.

When you need to present 3 versions of an ad, but the 2^nd one isn’t just right, Perfection will have you staring at a screen until your eyes twitch. Perfection will make you have 4 browser tabs open, all on Thesaurus.com, combing through lists and lists of ways to say the same damn thing, agonizing over every little detail. Perfection will leave you with one really great version, one good version and one red-headed-step-child version.

Perfection will make you look bad in front of your boss and coworkers.

Perfection will make you late for meetings.

Perfection will leave you with stupid, amateurish mistakes (like its/it's.)

Perfection will make you doubt yourself, your abilities and your entire purpose in life.

Perfection will wear you supermarket-plastic-bag thin.

Perfection will keep you from actually getting shit done.

 

I’m not at all saying just focus on just getting to the finish line, whether or not it’s any good. I’m saying if you’re aiming for exceptional and end up with great – be thankful for great and move on. It's better to have something complete to show than something half-baked but beautiful. (Or worse, a very shiny turd.)

There will be time to edit and re-edit. Trust me, your boss, project managers, account people and client will find always something wrong with what you did, no matter how perfect you thought it was.

You’ll have time to go back and make it better. To Barneyfy it. And you’ll come to realize that sometimes, Nordstrom’s is exactly what they wanted. Or that your Nordstrom’s is someone else’s Barney’s.

What you never want to do is mis-manage your time, miss deadlines, drop the ball on things, burn yourself out or sacrifice your health in chasing this ideal of Perfection.

Don’t be so hard on yourself.

No one expects you to be perfect. No one expects you to have Barney’s quality all the time. Or to never make a mistake. 

But  everyone expects you to deliver. To actually get shit done. And to do it well. (Whether at work or in school.)

If it's a good idea, that will show. Even if it's written on a napkin. It's better to finish it and have something to show, instead of spending hours polishing what turns out to be a very pretty Dollar General idea and realise you stressed yourself out for nothing. 

Focus on completing first, then get to finessing and polishing. Everyone is going to have feedback on what you do anyway. And you’re probably going to look back in a month and see how you can make it better. (Read Your Book WillNever Be Done.)

I’m going to take my own advice and finish this post. It’s a good post. And it doesn’t have to be perfect. (Read Be A Mess)

Wait. Let me just pull out my thesaurus and red pen and read it one more time.

No. I won't do it. I'm done.

Hi, my name is Neisha and I'm dangerously Virgo and an insatiable perfectionist. And I'm working on getting over myself.

Here's some notes you can write to yourself to help you get over yourself too.

Back2Work: Edit then re edit (then edit again)

"But I thought you said... But you told me to..."

You'll utter this to yourself quite a bit as a junior creative.

Here's what happens: Your ACD (Associate creative director aka next in line to be creative director) or CD gives you feedback to change X and put Y here and delete Z.

And, whether or not to fully get it or agree, you do it.

Sometimes, you're like - "Amazing. That changed everything." But there are those times when you present the updated work, they go "Errr, this isn't working. It needs some Z. And the Y shouldn't be there."

Your first thought is probably "Really???" -- But as I've gotten more experience (and patience) I see that sometimes you can't tell if something works or not until you try it.

Creating an ad isn't a direct science. There are several right answers. And even more wrong answers. And everybody, including your boss, will make mistakes sometimes.

We're all just trying to figure out the best mixture of ingredients to create something good - and like with cooking, sometimes you have to try a bunch of different things, a bunch of different ways, before you get it right.

That's why I suggest exploring 100 options. Move X to the left, to the right, make it orange, do every variation of the layout or the line until you can securely say - this one right here, this is it.

Present 2 or 3 options to your boss, showing the best ones of your exploration and ask for feedback.

And if your boss says Move X you can say, "Actually, I tried it, it didn't work. It was missing something. Let me show you..."

And voila. You look like someone who was really thinking, really trying, plus you've opened up an opportunity for you to truly learn - not just do what you're told to do because you were told to do it - but to know and understand next time why this doesn't need Z or X or whatever.

And that's how you grow.

Back2Work: Surviving The Feast & The Famine

Feast or Famine. I never understood that term until I got into advertising. (I don't think I ever heard it until then either.)

You literally go through periods of time when you have a million projects (sometimes with the same deadline) and then you have periods when you spend days on end searching the corners of the whole world wide web.

Here are some tips on how to make the most out of both periods so you don't jump off a bridge. (Being too bored or too busy elicit the same response from my brain: jump)

Feast: On average you'll have about 3 or so projects at a time, with varying deadlines and importance. (If you can't handle 3 project at a time, you should quit and go work at a Dairy Queen.) There will times when you get a hot project on top of everything or a deadline changes and things get a crazy, or if you have a CD that ignores you like I did at one of my first jobs, then you'll have 10 projects at a time. (No I'm not bitter. Much. It made me stronger.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh, what to do when in Feast mode:
1. Make a list of all your projects and deadlines. Prioritise them based on importance, date and size. Now get to work.

2. Come in early. Stay late. Eat lunch at your desk. Do whatever it takes to get your work done. Your motto should be "by any means necessary."

3. If you absolutely can't handle it, ask for more time. Tell your boss or a project manager that you'll be able to do better work if you had a bit more time and see if they can move a deadline a day or two.

4. Don't whine, fuss or stress yourself out. For one, you look like a brat. Everybody goes through times when they're too busy to breathe. It's the nature of the game. Two, when you stress out, you disrupt your productivity. You end up spending more time complaining or feeling overwhelmed than actually doing the work or you make foolish mistakes because you're not focused. Get it together.

Plus, remember, a famine is coming. This craziness is only for a time. My personal motto is "What doesn't kill me will make me stronger, and THIS WILL NOT KILL ME." So suck it up and keep working.

Famine: And then there are those periods where you are on the opposite side of the pendulum and things are so slow you feel like you're going backward. Maybe you're waiting for client feedback, have just one small project, or are just in a place in the schedule where there's not much going on. Here's how to make the best of times of Famine:

1. Take some time to breathe. Enjoy having the time to chat with coworkers, peruse the Internet and take a proper lunch break.  Check out some of the latest ads online. Catch up on your emails. Read some articles.

2. Ask for more work. Ask if anybody needs help. This makes you look proactive, which is always good.

3. Stay productive. Find other ways you can keep busy. Work on your blog. Update your book. Write a newsletter for your team. Start thinking of new ideas for future projects - Christmas is coming - what ideas can you do there?

4. Don't be an asshole. Don't interrupt folks who are working. Don't come late and/or leave early. Don't watch TV shows at your desk. Don't put your feet up and play Words With Friends or Brickbreaker all day. This is still a place of business and though you might not be working right now, you're still employed there.

Back2Work: No Doesn't Mean No

Monday. You sneaky little bastard.
(This was my first waking thought. Well, third. First was giving thanks, second was wondering what I'd eat, and then the realization that I'm not ready for it to be Monday.)

I was going to write about how I can't post today because I have a presentation (and if you remember from my Presentation 101 post, that means nothing else in the world matters) but the truth is, I also had this wonderful thing called a Weekend (I think it's French) and I could've written my post for today then, but did not. 

So instead I'm going to write about how to graciously say no without looking unreliable, unorganized and irresponsible.

Jay-z has a song where he says "They never tell me no, the most they say is 'not here.'"

That's kind of how I look at things with work sometimes. Especially if you're an intern or junior.

Try not to say no. Say not now.

When you're just starting off, you have to be PAW. Present. Available. Willing.
(I just made that up.)

You always have to have your swimsuit/trunks on and be ready to jump in there and swim. The older folks have put in their work and now have kids and lives they want to attend to. You have a career you want to grow. So make that your number one priority and be prepared to grind.

There's a saying "To whom much is given, much is expected." And once you establish yourself as awesome, available and hardworking, people expect you to always be awesome, available and hardworking.

But what about those times when you're not? Or better yet, when you can't be. Maybe you've got 8 other projects and have been holding your pee for the last 5 hours. Or maybe you're sick, or your mom's in town or it's Easter.

So how do you say NO or I CAN'T?

Stop, look and listen. Do a little reconnaissance work and look at other people's workloads, look at the timeline. Do you think this is feasible and fair? Is everybody else swamped too? Take a look around and see what's going on in your team and really access the situation.

Check yourself. Can you really not do this? If you rearranged some things, ate at your desk and put on blinders, could you make it happen?

Speak up. Talk to the project manager and see if there is any wiggly room in the timeline. Talk to your boss and see if he/she can push to get you a bit more time or get someone else to help. Talk to a coworker and see if they can help. You have many options and don't need to be overwhelmed and at your desk til sunrise five days in a row or miss your best friend's wedding unnecessarily.

Don't just say No or I can't. Those are ugly words. Ugly.

Don't give excuses. "Excuses are tools of incompetence used to build monuments of nothingness." (I'm on it today with the quotes!) If you have a legitimate reason, such as a family emergency or three deadlines at noon, say that. But don't give any sob stories or too many details. If someone asks, elaborate. Otherwise, stick to the facts. "I don't think I'll be able to handle xyz because ______."

Suggest alternatives. If you can't do it now, then when? Can you do part of it? People are willing to work with you if you come with solutions and ideas. 

Stay involved. Ask how it went. Ask if there's anything you can do on the back end to help. 

Wow them next time. The agency isn't going to fall apart if you can't do something. They'll work it out. But you also just missed out on an opportunity to show people how awesome you are. So next time, go hard.

Great article to read: 8 Essential Strategies to Saying NO.

(Hmm. Looks like I did have something to write about and time to write it in after all. This is why #2 - Check Yourself is so important to do. You're far more awesome than you think. At least I am.)

Mailbag: Dealing With Deadlines

Q: So far, I have been given deadlines ranging from one hour to a few hours. Because I have so little time to work on projects compared to what I'm used to, I am usually not happy with the results. Can you please give me some advice on how to handle it all?
- Emely, a MAIP summer intern at JWT NY


A: First off, go in earlier and stay later.

This business is all about timeliness. You have to be quick. But you also have to be good. It's sometimes hard to manage the two. So when necessary, ask for a little more time. Don't do it too often, but if you think having another hour or two would make a significant difference to the quality of work, say that.

If you have several projects, try to prioritize and see which ones you can ask for more time on so you can focus on being really great when it really matters. Time management is your responsibility but if you need help/advice on what is most important, ask a project manager or your supervisor.

Honestly, some of the deadlines are probably stricter than they need to be because you're an intern. It's part them testing you and part them not trusting you. They need to see what you can do and need time for someone else to fix it if you mess up. (But don't tell anyone I told you that.)

Ask nicely and say in order to do quality work and prevent several rounds of revisions, you're going to need more time up front. Which is saving time overall because it means you can get it right the first go.

If you meet the deadline then find you have time, revise the piece later into to something you like more. This is good because you now have a piece you can use in your book that you feel good about. And you can submit it again and say you took more time and thought this was better because of xyz reasons. See if they'll take that instead or as well. Then you can say for the next round, if I have more time, I can do something really great like the one I redid that time. You've set a precedent now that more time = better work and they're more likely to trust you and try to get you more time.

However some times, you're going to have to just suck it up, work through lunch, ignore Facebook and put the pedal to the metal to produce something good in little to no time. It happens to everyone from time to time. Just take a deep breath and focus.

Put your all into every project. No matter how small or stupid it may seem. If you do good with small + stupid you'll graduate to medium + alright and eventually get to big + exciting. And that is why you got into this business, right?

Now get back to work.