07 May 2007, Posted by Matthew Reinbold in New Work Ways,Thought & Theory, 0 Comments

Personal Resolutions For the Passionate Web Dev

I have a real issue with productivity. The knee-jerk opinion may be that I prefer my soap operas and illicit bon-bon consumption over profitable production. While my teeth may indeed be sweet the problem isn’t so much purposeful procrastination. It’s more the overwhelming fear of being average.

Perhaps it was one too many repetitions of ‘do your best’ while growing up. Or maybe its an unhealthy need for peer attention. Whatever the reason, however, the result is the same. I’ll have a task to do and it will take longer than expected because I want to redefine the genre. Or invent a new paradigm. Or simply write THE BEST POST EVER after a sudden and lengthy absence. Forget what the client wants – somehow what best serves their needs gets transmuted into my requirement for categorical perfection whether they want it that way or not.

The pressure that I put on myself can make even the simplest project daunting. And when faced with such steep requirements I end up spending way too much time analyzing the problem set looking for new avenues of self-expression. By this point deadlines loom. I rush putting code together in a rash of late night programming binges. The end result isn’t much better than if I would have just aimed for producing something serviceable to begin with.

I need to stop seeing clients projects as extensions of myself. I need to keep the customers needs first and foremost. I need to realize that not everything needs to be a footnote in web history. I need to work assuming that deadlines are law. Finally, I need to accept that perfection is a privilege – not a right. I don’t receive requests to discover golden fleeces or holy grails. I need to stop using my client’s projects as excuses to go off and find them.