There’s a very simple principle I follow. Don’t do it. No, I’m not talking about Nancy Reagan’s ‘just say no to drugs’. It’s about not doing what you don’t want to do.
Life is exciting! I have skills and interests that are crying out to be utilised and expanded. Spending time on things that don’t interest me, or that I don’t have the skills for, is a waste.
Don’t misunderstand this. It’s not like I never do unpleasant tasks, such as the dishes. It’s also about understanding the greater motivation. What do you really want to do? Not doing the dishes would mean living in a pigsty. So although doing the dishes in isolation may not be my favourite task, I’m happy to do the dishes in the context of living in a clean house.
There’s a project I’m involved in, one which will hopefully soon be unleashed upon the world in all its glory. I’m excited about the project, and the people I’m working with. The responsibility for development was clearly assigned to me, but the responsibility for design was a little more loosely defined. Not all the participants in the project understood design in the same way I did. So, at times it fell to me to take up the slack in the design area.
I’m not good at design. I have a good eye for what works, but implementing it is not my forte. Spending the time on design was frustrating. I put off the work. It ran late. I began to resent the project. Trying to track down a missing pixel while thinking something like F*^cking hell, this is not my job is not conducive to quality work, or an enjoyable existence. Having a huge load of other projects to work on at the same time didn’t help me to resent the hours that pixel was taking any less.
The solution was simple. Hire a designer to do the work they’re competent at, and get back to enjoying what I’m interested and able to do. As well as repairing the relationships with the angry partners in the project 🙂