By Robb Wagner
Living your best creative work life requires two pieces. Firstly, doing what you love. Secondly, not having to do what you don’t. Case study: @stimulatedinc, my own creative studio where I developed a framework that let us eliminate thousands of hours of non-creative work for each project we take on.
For instance, our team will deliver over 22,000 seconds of original, high-level animated content in the first half of 2021. However, we will never have to do the following non-creative work.
- We never have to search for artists
- We never have to assign work to artists
- We never have to jump around between sites
- We never have to do project management
- We never have to wade through emails
- We never have to worry about being disrupted
- We never have to have too many technologies
- We never have to give artists instructions
- We never have to do inefficient, costly, and exhausting work
- We never have to work without a framework
Eliminating these pain-points from our creative work lives eliminated thousands of hours of zero-return, high-strain, non-creative work for myself and my team. Whatsmore, I could convert these found hours into high-value creative work. Most importantly, this benefits all of our stakeholders, from our internal team, to our remote workforce, to our clientele.
Kicking non-creative work out of your way before you trip and fall over it isn’t easy, but it’s necessary. Here’s my approach. Firstly, start by forecasting any problem that might hurt your ability to keep ahead of the world’s evolving creative needs. Secondly, imagine a framework that would let you head off those problems before they become problems. Thirdly, design and build the framework. Finally, implement the framework.
The frameworks I develop always include a technique, a set of rules, and technology to simplify complex workflows. I’ve been doing it for my entire career, from my earliest days as a post production supervisor until today. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Off-the-shelf solutions never work, because there’s only one of you and your unique set of problems. Experimenting with off-the-shelf solutions, or improvising with them will only cost you time and money while you fail to find a real solution that helps you thrive.
If this sounds like a lot of work it is. But immediate gratification is also possible by leveraging an existing framework. For instance, Stimulated.Works, the content production resource for agencies. This helps advertising, marketing, and digital agencies to produce high-level digital marketing and content without having to search for talent or manage artists.
-lrn.#TipTuesday #CreativeWork #MarketingAgency