You can get stuck in a sort of bubble when you’re working especially when you’re working by yourself or with the same couple people. It’s easy to get comfortable; to compliment and boost each others egos. Which feels good but it doesn’t help you step up your game.

You’re not going to get better unless you ask for feedback on your work. Everyone isn’t going to give you feedback or give you feedback that you want to hear. When it’s good and constructive criticism it can be an incredible motivator in helping you to improve. I know I want to do the best work I can and I’m sure everyone else wants that too. I doubt any of us really want to do mediocre work. So when we’re given advice on how we can improve the quality of our work, it is typically embraced because its a motivating force that can only make us do better.

Whether the feedback is good or bad, don’t be afraid to ask for it. Even when it’s bad, it only stings for a minute.

So, go ahead, ask for feedback and use it as an opportunity to get better!

Are you excited to wake up in the morning? Happy to take on the day? Thrilled to see what might happen? Or dread waking up and just want to pull the covers back over your head?

I’ll often stay up late working on different projects or reading articles. There is just so much I want to accomplish everyday and going to sleep just isn’t one of those tasks on the to-do list. 

The same holds true for the morning, well, sometimes it’s a little hard to get moving in the morning especially depending on how late I stayed up the night before. I’m really just not an early riser, no matter how much I try. Even if I’m not jumping out of bed at 6:00 AM, when I do get up I’m ready to take on the challenges of the day. It’s that motivation to get going on the days task that gets me out of bed.

When you can find that thing that’s going to get you bouncing out of bed in the morning and head to work, you’re in a great place.

How many great ideas have you talked yourself out of or even failed to start because you talked yourself out of it. I’ve lost count on how many projects and ideas I’ve abandoned. I bet right now you have something you’ve been thinking about doing. Whether it’s a new personal project, a blog post, changing careers, eating healthy or just waking up earlier. When that idea first hits you, you’re ready to commit 100% to it. But then you don’t start it right away, you write it down in a notebook or decide to think about it some more. As you’re thinking about it, all the reasons why you shouldn’t do it start to creep in. You can’t let that fear or self doubt allow you to throw in the towel. Nothing worth building or doing is going to be easy, if it were easy there would be no challenge and what’s the fun in that. The next time that great idea strikes you, just jump in. Go all the way in so there is no turning back. No guts, no glory right?

I’ve worked on a number of projects in the last couple years that have what seemed to be a very laxed deadline. And I’m sure many of you have all had a few of those as well. The client presents the job to you and you ask “when they need it”, you then hear the client say “it’s no rush, take your time” or “we’re still working that out.” The problem is that the client always has some sort of deadline in mind when they presented the job to you and that deadline is likely different then what you were thinking. Since it’s presented as not being a rush you may not always jump into it right away. It gets pushed to the side and other projects that have deadlines get moved to the front. Sure the project is still in the back of your mind but you are under the assumption that you have plenty of time. Maybe a month goes by and you really haven’t  done much on the project yet because other work with official deadlines come in and you know those have to get done. The cycle can quickly continue, weeks turn into months and those months begin to pile up. This open ended / no rush deadline project has now become an issues and the client is wondering where the finished product is.

My experience is that when you hit about that two month mark of when you started talking about the project and you have shown only minor things, the client begins to get strange… And of course for a good reason, it’s been two months and you aren’t done with the project. Or even near where they thought you would be by this time. All of a sudden they need it finished and you can’t possibly get it done because you can’t physically do two months of work in a few days. As a result the client will probably end up unhappy and the project might get pulled from you altogether because you aren’t going to be able to do what they wanted in the time needed. Future work with this client could also be unlikely and a bridge could be burned.

Don’t let the idea of an open ended deadline blow up in your face. A couple things I’ve done to try and deal with this issue are to first press the client for a deadline. They know when they want it done or at least would like to see something. If they don’t give you a deadline set one yourself and tell them this is when the can expect to see something. Even though you made up the date to show them the work, stick by it and don’t let it slide because you know it’s not a drop dead date. Deadlines allow you to output more work on a timely fashion and are only beneficial to you. Stick to the deadlines and make breaking a deadline a cardinal sin for anything you are working. Don’t fall into the open ended project trap because you are likely to get burned.