work rate

Although rewards can be fluked or undeserved, the majority of them are a direct result of one thing – hard work. One thing money can’t buy is a good work rate and it’s not really something you can learn either.

Is it a skill? A trait? A natural gift? It’s hard to know. Work rate is defined as ‘The quality of being productive’ and although the definition of being ‘productive’ can differ from one person to the next, it generally involves goal setting, meeting or exceeding expectations, sticking at something when it’s easier to give it up etc…

Although i don’t think i spend any more time online these days than i did a year ago, i know that i’m much more productive. That’s because i’m producing more output – visible work which you and i can both see.

photo credit: Iain Browne

I’m not really *that* concerned with the quality of output on this blog which may seem strange, but i believe that getting myself in to a routine will eventually pay off. One post per day, one custom designed image per post; they’re the goals every single day on this blog.

So far i’m doing well… hitting that goal daily without problems. Has my writing improved? Maybe, i can’t really judge that myself. But i know that my creativity has increased. I know every day that i must come up with a blog post, so i’m constantly thinking about what to write about & how to write about it. I know that’s a good thing 🙂

Because i’ve forced myself to design daily, my design skills are also improving. Are my designs themselves improving? Again i can’t really judge that myself yet, but i do know that i’m learning more and i’m adding more resources to my armory every day (styles, fonts, patterns etc..).

A lot of bloggers will say it’s quality over quantity and that’s the defence for churning out one or two posts per week. However, if i was to adopt that same mentality, my skills would suffer or at the very least not improve as fast as they are at the minute. In general, hard work pays off so i’ve no intention of slowing down, even though things are getting pretty busy for me right now.

Set goals, hit them. Rinse, wash & repeat. It’s the only way to move forward in anything.