Today has been a great day. I had coffee with a friend whom I greatly admire and respect. Of all the things we talked about, the topic that resonated throughout the day was about reaching production goals and that “great is the enemy of good.” She reminded me of her blog post, Great is the enemy of good and other things I learned from blogging, in which she wrote about the lessons she learned from keeping a blogging production schedule and sticking to it. The gem which really stood out tonight as I reflect upon the lessons of this week: “You have 24 hours to make the deadline.”
Today ended a week filling in at a sign shop while their designer is off on his honeymoon. What did I learn? That you need to daily design AND print AND produce. You can’t wait for inspiration to strike, especially when a customer walks in the door wanting some cut vinyl skull and crossbones for his boat and all you have is a cell phone image. You take a picture of his picture, load it into Illustrator, do the best you can and get the vinyl cut so that the installer can get it on the boat. While that is just one example of meeting production goals, there were over 10 a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. There was never a moment of downtime and when there was, it was prepping for the next round of prints and cuts.
So, what did I learn? Great is the enemy of good, you can’t always wait to be inspired, people want their stuff delivered in a timely manner finished the best that you can do in a given period of time, and at the end of the day, most people are happy. Oh, and that vinyl cutting machines are AWESOME! I discovered the joy of loading vinyl, prepping vector files, and watching the machine cut the vinyl into the exact shapes that I designed on the computer. Pure voodoo awesomeness!
The day ended with reading a letter of recommendation from another dear friend. All I can say is that I am the man that I am because of my friends, family and my wife. Without them, I would truly be a miserable wretch.
Finally, on Sunday, I will be celebrating my seventh anniversary with Kristina. It’s amazing how fast time flies, but I must say, I’m still glad that I am married to her. We have been through rough patches and blissful moments, but they are all worth it because of how her laugh, smile and personality makes life absolutely worth it.
What a week. What will next week bring? We shall see.