• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Write Bold

Putting Your Content to Work

  • Blog
  • For Writers
  • For Businesses
  • Pricing
  • About Britt

projects

3 Rules to Help You Wrap Up Your Content Projects

August 17, 2011 By Britt Raybould

The first time I went through a bank drive thru after I got my driver’s license, I drove off with little cylinder you use to send stuff through the air chute. I didn’t notice it until I got to my next stop. Mortified, I drove back to the same drive thru lane to return it. The teller assured me that it happened more than often than you might think. Luckily I’ve never done it again.

In the rush of doing something new for the very first time, I got caught up in the moment. The same things happens when we decide to tackle a new project. Whether it’s something small, like a white paper, or something big, like a business-wide content strategy, we tend to rush our fences.

Fascinated By the New and Shiny

In our pursuit of the new and shiny, it’s very easy to not finish projects. In the bank drive thru I was so focused on things like making sure my mirrors didn’t hit the poles and endorsing the check that I didn’t complete the task. Instead I raced off to the next thing on my list only to discover I needed to go back.

Every time we have to go back to a project because we rushed off to something new is wasted time. We lose the time going back. We lose the time we could be working on our next project. And perhaps most importantly, we lose that sense of satisfaction that something that was checked off the list now isn’t.

Questioning Our Skills

Why does satisfaction matter? Because it’s connected to the way we view our ability. If we’re constantly redoing things, it starts to have a impact. We go from believing in our skills, to questioning our competency. This slide gets in the way of getting things done efficiently, particularly when it comes to creating content. When you’re dealing with a medium that’s built a word at a time, the last thing you want to happen is the belief you need to question every keystroke.

Embrace the Challenge

We will still make mistakes, and we can’t obsess over every detail forever. But these three rules will help you avoid driving off with plastic cylinders AND having to return to projects you thought finished:

  • Make a checklist. While written checklists are preferable, at minimum, establish a set of routines for each time of project that you follow every time. The initial process of creating the checklist may be tedious and time consuming, but it will prevent many headaches in the future.
  • Finish what you start. It’s tempting to hand off projects or tell yourself that you’ll get back to something. You’ll probably regret both. Unless you’re required to give the project to someone else, see things through to the end. The same applies for getting back to something later. Try to keep your work flow as consistent as possible.
  • Look around one last time. Before hitting publish, send, or doing anything permanent, take the time to look through things one last time. You’ll be surprised at the things you catch on that last pass.

It will always seem like the project list only seems to grow. However, we can avoid re-adding things to the list if we don’t get distracted and really finish things instead of pushing them aside.

Filed Under: Best Practices, Blog, Content Creation Tagged With: checklist, projects, satisfaction

Getting the Most Out of Your Content Strategy

July 28, 2011 By Britt Raybould

Lazy WorkoutWe’ve all done a workout or two that we gave less than our best effort. But why do we do it? We’re still taking the time to do the workout, so why not do everything possible to get the full benefit?

I see this approach happen all the time in content strategy. Maybe it’s a routine project and it seems like a waste of time to do more than the bare minimum. Maybe it’s a complicated project that feels overwhelming. Whatever the circumstances, people choose to do less than their best. But the work still has to be done. So like the exercise routine, why not do what you need doing to get the greatest benefit?

Here are some ideas to help you get the most out of your content strategy (routine):

1) Add a Warm Up

Ever jump into a snow-fed lake? It’s not pleasant. The shock won’t kill you (probably), but it can bring you to a screeching halt. The same thing can happen if you haven’t built a warm up in to your content strategy. So start with the basics.

Identify the people who’ll contribute to the project. Outline a broad goal of what you hope to achieve. Make a quick assessment of existing resources. Whatever gets you headed in the right direction, make sure you do it every time. Creating consistency from beginning can help you avoid the cold-lake effect regardless of the project size or complexity.

2) Track Project Progress

Tracking the results of a workout can show if you’re improving over past routines. Sometimes in the rush to get things done, tracking individual and overall progress can get overlooked. In some ways, you can’t get to where you want to go if you don’t know where you’ve been. Plus you get the benefit of understand how your scope of work changes over time.

Tracking progress also gives you a baseline for assessing and comparing different projects. Did you really need five people or did a similar project with three people show that the smaller group was more efficient?

3) Don’t Leave Out the Challenge

For workouts to do their job, we have to do things that keep them challenging, like increasing the weight or going longer. The same holds true for your content strategy. Just because you did a project one way six months ago doesn’t mean you should automatically do a new, but similar, one the same way.

You’ve probably learned something new in those six months. Put that knowledge to work on the new project and look for other ways to improve on the status quo. Doing so can keep you focused and interested in the work. I’m not talking about making it harder for the sake of working harder, but instead about making it better.

Overall you’ll get more out of your content strategy (routine) if you look for ways to maximize every project. And like any good workout, you’ll start to feel and see the benefits.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Content Strategy Tagged With: content strategy, projects, routine

Primary Sidebar

FacebookGoogle LinkedIn Twitter

Copyright © 2025 · Metro Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in