Facing Feast or Famine? (Part Two)

If you feel like you’re facing a feast or famine, there are things that can help make both a lot easier on you.  I have already posted thoughts for those facing famine, since it is the more likely of the two in “this economy” as everyone is saying; however, facing a feast can be equally daunting.

Think of the terms as they literally apply to food: feast or famine.  This means we have either too much or not enough.  Neither is a very good thing, I think.  When you have too little, obviously you’re starving.  When you have too much, you’re either (a) wasteful because you can’t eat it all or (b) gluttonous because you want to eat everything in front of you.  Just like Goldilocks, you don’t want to aim for the extremes but the option that is “just right” because it is best.

Unfortunately, we have the phrase “feast or famine” for a reason.  All too often, we experience it.  So, if you are facing a feast right now, there are ways in which you can prepare to better handle it:

• Don’t overeat.
  Overeating, in the figurative sense, can be painful for freelance creatives and agencies alike.  It means staffing up, stressing out, or simply working too many hours in a week.  This leads to a diminishing level of quality because you race to keep up with all of the details.  Juggling so many balls in the air inevitably leads to something being missed.  We all have our limits, and knowing them will help us be much healthier.  Just like health experts recommend drinking water to fill up so you eat just the right amount, or using a smaller plate so your portions are smaller, find a way to make sure you and your agency don’t overeat during a feast.  One simple way is to share the wealth when you recognize that you have too much work coming in.
• Share the wealth.
  At Thanksgiving, you send loved ones home with to-go plates because you know you can’t eat it all yourself before the food goes bad.  The same can be true in a client-creative relationship.  Personally, I would much rather a designer tell me they are too busy to help me right now instead of taking on the work, missing the mark, and leaving me disappointed later.  Take heed to prepare sharing when you know you can’t handle it all alone.

  When you’re sharing the wealth, it can take on many different forms: passing work onto a peer, delegating to someone else on your team, or simply hiring employees at your agency before everyone gets overworked.  If you know you have too much to do, find a way to share the wealth in a way that works within your organization.

• It’s not quantity, it’s quality.
  Know that the quality of work often goes down when the quantity goes up.  It is possible to ensure that the level of quality work going out is maintained, but during a feast this can be tough to do.  Focusing on those quality assurance processes during a famine is a good idea, but that does little to help those already facing a feast.  If you see your work load getting heavier, be careful before taking on too many more projects and remember that it’s not quantity, it’s quality.

When you’re facing a feast, be just as strategic as if you were facing leaner times.  It’s always possible to have too much of a good thing.  That balance in between the two extremes is the goal, and if you can reach that with a few slight variations, you may find yourself (and your agency) to be much healthier.

Have suggestions?  Please feel free to add them!