Recently I had a chat with my boss where we (unfairly probably) lambasted clients behind their backs for not fully comprehending deadlines—both for their own sake and ours. Indeed, it’s a mindset everyone gets into for any number of things. Most people don’t fill up their gas tanks when they’re 3/4s full. If you’re like me, you might push your cars understanding of just exactly what “empty” actually means and push the record of how far you can get after your display informs you the range has been passed. In those instances, filling up really does become “as soon as possible.”
Now from an illustrator/graphic designer’s perspective who tends to like busting chops, if you commission me and say, “I need this ASAP!” I’ll respond, “Okay, so that’s sometime three years from now.” I’ve got Netflix shows to catch up on, comics to read, video games to play, and my daughter and I have tons of toys to play with; so if prioritizing my work based on how important I think what you’re asking for is any kind of barometer of our relationship; you should expect that to be very low.
Okay, okay, but we do it for the money, right? Sure, but let’s really ask about your timeline. Sometimes that’s obvious. “This is a Christmas present, I need it for Christmas and I’d like a few minutes to wrap it.” If you’re making that request in October, we’re looking at a reasonable deadline to get that to you by the beginning to middle of December the absolute latest. Screaming “AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!” before Halloween makes you so full of baloney that you could open up your own deli (my daughter and I came up with that sick burn!).
Now sometimes ASAP really means right away. “I have a wedding in 3 weeks and I still haven’t sent invitations out.” First of all, yikes. Secondly, that’s now a rush and ASAP probably means, “What I really need is a time machine.” Now we’re talking lots of cash too, and don’t think for a minute I’m not going to charge you out the wazoo for your own procrastination. Not just because I have to bust my hump getting these invitations done, but also because your nervous energy is really going to cramp my style as well.
But none of those are what my boss and I were talking about. No, my experience is that most people request ASAP because they are projecting their own self image onto you, the creative. Sometimes, we really don’t take the time to actually figure out when we need something, but more often than not, we just want to be done with it. That’s understandable (if not insulting), but a good freelance artist of any kind is going to manage their time in a way that’s conducive to their client. Again, if you’re like me, you’ll even be up front about that. I have not been very good at all managing my creative free time since my daughter was born because I just happen to love devoting as much time to my own family as I possibly can. Having the benefit of a full–time job also allows me to turn down requests and commissions relatively freely. When a client is persistent or the job seems fun, I’ll lay out my parameters and let them decide if I’m still worth it.
The bottom line is that it’s so important to trust a professional with your deadlines. I can tell you that if I have a super long time to get something done, I’m not putting it off until last minute. I’m either planning, getting it to the client early, or working within my own schedule to properly accommodate the work and clients expectations. In other words, try to avoid saying “ASAP.” The work will suffer for it.
If you are a freelance creative person, Philip VanDusen has a great video on time management you should check out below and follow him for design trends to digital marketing and everything else in between.