Stop. Take a minute and think.

Like my old man always said ‘if you really want to, you can do it – having no time is just an excuse!’
As we grow we start to understand that multitasking and time management can help us juggle a million things at one go – it’s okay boys, you wouldn’t understand the multitasking part – don’t worry, with all our nagging you’ll get there eventually 😛
The trick to it all is planning ahead and being positive! The worst thing you could do to yourself is to fall into a monotonous routine and regret the decisions you have made in the past. Every second you spend is  an experience to learn from and a memory to treasure!
Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier to make time for breakfast and kick start your day on a positive note!
Have a positive can do attitude and you find that any task you need to complete is done in a shorter time because you didn’t spend half of it complaining about how busy you are or about how impossible it is to get the job done.
Spare five minutes and call your parents, an old friend, or an ex colleague. If you think you have no time for that – do it while you’re in the bathroom, just make sure to flush after you hang up and not while you’re on the phone; having to reply to the question ‘what’s that noise?’ can be a little embarrassing – true story!

Spend 30 minutes cooking some healthy chicken and yummy salad for dinner instead of queuing up at a fast food restaurant. Do your grocery shopping once during the week instead of having to go to the store everyday – draw up a shopping list and plan your meals in advance, it’s not rocket science!
Find a hobby, pick a sport, go out for a short walk and stay active instead of dumping yourself on the sofa watching useless TV programs.
With all that’s been going on over the past few days you stop and realise that you’re here today and gone tomorrow.
What I am trying to say is that we all have the same amount of hours at our disposal – what we do with this time is what makes us happier or angrier, what keeps us sane or stresses the living hell out of us.
Can’t believe I found the time to write this in my busy schedule – and no, I’m not on the loo – or am I? 😉
Until next time! (ha ha)

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1. Warm Up

Get to know your client. Ask a few general questions to make sure that you are both on the same page regarding tastes, objectives and target audience. Prepare a moodboard and share it with the client to get visual buy-in, too.

2. Show them the light

Give them an idea of the milestones for the entire project, in this way they won’t be in the dark and won’t feel the need to bombard your inbox 3 times a week (or a day if you’re unlucky). Planning and proposing everything to the client before the project begins saves a lot of time later on in the journey. So yes, a lot of time is spent getting organised, but it’s essential, and it’s basically a win-win situation. Once all the cards are on the table you’re ready to begin. Let’s do this!

3. Jump the gun

Yes, in my position, I would have my own milestones set ahead of time. Prepare. Brace yourself. Problems, unexpected problems, will occur. Keeping some boundary time between milestones helps me to keep the whole project on track as much as possible. At times it helps, other times it just causes more and more delays. Having everything planned ahead of time will avoid encountering major meltdowns half way through the process. Nobody likes a zombie project.
Incidentally, you might want to put a project management software in place. BeeWits (our very own tool!), Trello or Asana are also great alternatives.

4. ChChCh-Changes

This is my favourite – in every project, no matter how much you plan ahead, there will always be changes. Changes to improve the user experience or just simple changes from the client’s end. This is understandable, and so it’s something I always allocate some time for in the planning process. Everybody has his own way of imagining things, so when one sees it visually, it might not look as appealing as they had imagined it to be. This could be one of the hardest stages since at the end of the day you would like to make your client happy, but sometimes you just need to slowly back off.

5. Test. Test. Keep Testing

No matter how many times you test a website before going live, something always seems to break. So keep testing and get other people in the office to test it out too. Everybody will pinpoint out something which slipped your mind, especially if the project has been going on for months, you basically become visually impaired to the obvious. Apart from that this is a great exercise to have the office informed of what you’re up to! Monitoring will continue going even after you launch, you can never trust what’s out there.

6. Launch? Now?!

Clients will chase you, and will ask how things are and when they’ll be done. Hopefully you’ve tested enough for the site to go live, and you’ve sent a  preview of the test site which was approved by the client (make sure they love it). Once that’s done…it’s time to launch their baby. Are the developers around? Yes. Are they available for a few hours? Yes. Hosting? Check. Is it Friday? Nope! (damn). You should never launch on a Friday, the people you will need might not be around over the weekend if hell breaks loose.

7. Show Time!

Fingers crossed, that everything goes well. When moving a site from the test platform to the actual domain you might end up breaking elements, so your developer needs to be there holding your hand, hoping everything will move in one piece.

Once this is done you just need some polishing up of bits and pieces but these will only be little tweaks which will make everyone look good at the end of it all.
And yes! One more project crossed off my to-do list. Until the process starts all over again.
So yeah, apart from having fun, this is what I do at work… Hot chocolate Richard?

The post Ready for take off – Seeing projects through to the end appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

How do I keep myself organised?

With a list of responsibilities and deadlines to meet, things sometimes get a bit crazy. In a position like mine it’s important to keep on top of everything and never let the work get overwhelming.
Over the years I developed a system of work which helps me keep things organised.

My 6 Time Management Tips to Increase Productivity and Improve your Organisational Skills at work

1. Prepare in advance – especially when there’s a tight deadline or a client’s meeting. It’s better to be prepared and plan things carefully. If you’re attending a meeting, create an Agenda so all the line items on the Agenda are discussed and looked into whilst at the meeting.
2. Schedule your time and your day – The workload can be split. No need to hassle and stress. Create a priority list.
3. Start early and don’t waste time :p
4. Be organised – Use a filing system both at home and at the office. If you need to find something and you’re in a rush, it will be easily found.
5. Create a detailed handover for when you’re away of the office – This will help others know what’s going on with your on-going projects while you’re away. Clients would still be happy to receive any jobs that are due while you’re away.
6. Have a to do list or reminders – This way you will never leave something out.

What’s the benefit to all this?

Being more organised means being more time efficient. You lose time looking for lost files and documents or fishing through old emails to track down missing information. You waste time switching between devices to get different information from separate places.
Be conscious of this and keep files and things you will need later organised and easily accessible to make your life easier in the future.
With a few simple changes and adjustments you can save hours during the week and significantly increase your productivity and decrease your stress levels. Of course don’t forget to have some fun and get away every once in a while.
Just remember: you’re the master of your work, not the other way around!

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