I will be the first to admit that I don’t always work on some exciting stuff. Every once in a while we’ve all had to fill in the cracks, pay the bills, call it what you want. I get pretty bored in the middle of these edits sometimes. I start to daydream of the last project I was on or surf the internet or twitter or end up watching all SNL Digital Shorts known to man to avoid cutting. When it comes down to it, they need to get done though.
How do I fight this boredom? How do I get past the edits staring at me? I do two things.
1) Breakdown the Edit.
In most cases you should able to break the edit down into speakers, topics, deliverables, anything. Put up a few categories and make a task list out of each of them. Let’s say you have 8 different deliverables for the client. Based on that, assume each of them are just one speaker or reel. Make a box you can check for each step you will find yourself along, i.e. selects, assemble, rough, fine, final, color, gfx, etc. Now you can start to see how much work you have (or don’t have) left to do.
2) Set a timer
Because I have a hard time concentrating when it is a boring topic, I use my iPhone timer to give me a limit on that subject. That way I know “it will all be over soon.” This allows me to force myself to focus for that amount of time. If the timer hits and I have found my groove with that section, I set it again for the same amount of time. I move from that task to another if I can’t find my groove in that amount of time.
This may sound a little odd to some people. Everyone has a different method to their madness. This is just one of mine.
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I like this input a lot. I think we all eventually find ourselves in this kind of situation at some point or other. Thanks for sharing. It’s also nice to know I’m not the only one who struggles at times
I do the timer thing as well. There’s a piece of software called Freedom that shuts off the internet for a certain amount of time: http://macfreedom.com/ Forces you to work for a while.
Good tips – I find myself in this situation a lot.
Your timer hack reminds me of Merlin Mann’s procrastination hack http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/procrastination-hack-1025