Short on time? You may think shortcutting your design and client processes is saving you time and money, but what is it really costing you?

There’s a common thread we’ve noticed over our many years of running graphic design businesses and teaching design students. If you short cut process, you generally end up regretting it.

It’s a bit like that old tale of the tortoise and the hare. You know the one where the tortoise ends up winning the race because they took a slow and steady approach rather than rushing and shortcutting.

Here’s the thing, when you shortcut process you generally have to backtrack and spend up time fixing up messes and putting out fires all over the place—this is what we want you to avoid.

These kinds of project messes can lead to a lack of credibility and trust as well as client dissatisfaction.

We’re all human, we all make mistakes, but if you have a strong framework of reliable go-to systems underpinning your design business, the mistakes can be minimised.

We love the idea of blaming the system, not the person. If there’s something happening on repeat to undermine your business, is there a system that can prevent it from happening again?

Here are some examples of what shortcutting project management can look like in your graphic design business:

• Doing rush work without sending a quote or getting a deposit
• Not getting your client to sign off on a contract
• Committing to additional work when you haven’t been paid for previous work
• Skipping strategy and concept work and jumping straight to the app to design (thereby limiting your solutions to your technical skillset rather than the limitless potential of your conceptual brain, resulting in mediocre results).
• Not following up when you said you would (giving the impression of being unreliable & unstable)
• Being lackadaisical about boundaries (ok I’ll let them get away with it this time…)
• Not organising files (and now an old client has requested a file…what?!) 😳

But let’s not forget about the cost of shortcutting your physical, mental and emotional needs:

• Working long hours
• Not taking regular breaks
• Not eating properly—snacking at your desk
• Long hours hunched over at your desk—this is a graphic designer occupational hazard (health professionals are referring to sitting as the new smoking—check out this article: The dangers of sitting: why sitting is the new smoking)
• Not investing in an ergonomic chair and desk—setting up office on lounges and in places where your posture is compromised.
• Not moving your body at regular intervals
• Not planning nourishing meals and drinking adequete water (we have definitely had seasons of our life where we have sustained ourselves on coffee and chocolate)

On a personal level, all of the above can increase feelings of stress and self-doubt and lead to you resenting your design business.

Ask yourself if there could be self-sabotaging aspect to your actions.

Many of the cutting-corner actions we listed above lead to increased stress, which leads to brain fatigue, which leads to poor conceptual ability, which leads to mediocre results, which leads to becoming unreliable, which leads to feelings of imposter syndrome and not-enoughness, which leads to loss of clients, which leads to cashflow problems, which leads to business resentment. Shall we go on?

What could your life and business look like if you followed business systems that support you?

So, what can designers do about all this?

The first step is awareness. Start noticing if ongoing problems and frustrations in your business could have been prevented. Often it’s the little one degree changes that make all the difference. Martha Beck talks about the trajectory of an aeroplane—consider how far off course (or on-course) a 1-degree change every half hour would make to the final destination?

Are you making decisions based on fear or lack? Are you shortcutting because you feel you have no alternative, otherwise the client might not proceed with you or you will run out of time?

Allyson Byrd talks about how she used to skip personal training sessions in favour of doing one more hour of work. Because one more hour of work equals money, right? Wrong. It takes a paradigm shift to trust that taking a slower, more intentional approach will be how you will actually create a thriving and sustainable business.

Allyson create a paradigm shift by setting an intention that whenever she works out, she makes money. How could you apply this to your own life? It could be ‘I make money whenever I mediate’. ‘My business flourishes whenever I spend time with my family’. “My business is supported when I’m supporting my body.’

Let us know what your new intention is, we’d love to hear from you.

Much love
Kris & Donna xx

Podcast #39 Transcription

[00:00:00] Donna: Hello everybody 

[00:00:01] Kris: Helloooo. A quickie for you. It’s appropriate actually because it’s about being short on time and what happens when you’re short on time. So we’re doing a quickie. Because we wanted to talk about what happens when you shortcut your process. 

[00:00:17] Donna: Yeah. You might think I’m going to save all this time and I’m going to just cut to the chase. I’m gonna do this, this and this, but what actually happens is it ends up coming around and, you know, biting you on the butt.

[00:00:29] Kris: What is it really costing you honestly. Yeah. Like you might think I’m saving some time. I’m saving some money. But what happens is when you’re short-cutting to save time or your budget, there’s a whole flow-on effect that happens. And we wanted to talk about that. 

[00:00:49] Donna: Absolutely. So a flow-on effect or the adverse, which is the meat at the beginning is missed. So there’s no substance or it’s mediocre because you’ve just completely, you know, leapfrogged a whole section. That juicy, juicy bit. If you shortcut that bit, that’s where mediocrity kicks in. And that section is really critical for informing the trajectory of the rest of the project. So if you skipped that, you’re potentially missing the most transformative part of your process. So it’s essential not to take shortcuts at any stage of your beautiful process and that you know works. When you know it works, don’t cut it. Don’t shortcut it. 

[00:01:30] Kris: Yeah. And you might not have really good ideas about process and we can help you with that.
We’ve got definitely tools and resources for you to be able to tap into the processes that we use, but whether it’s design process or whether it’s client management process, if you shortcut, you’re going to regret it. Like I personally have regretted it every single time I’ve done it.

[00:01:54] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:01:55] Kris: I have done it. I have done it every single time. I’m…it just falls apart. 

[00:02:00] Donna: Guilty. I think most of us are guilty, especially when we’re time-poor. Especially when we’ve got lots of balls in the air. It feels like it’s a little bit too appealing to shortcut because we’re trying to snatch back some time. But yeah. Been there, done that and regretted it every time as well. 

[00:02:18] Kris: Yeah. We’ll run through some examples. What shortcutting can look like just in case you’re like, am I shortcutting? I don’t know if I am short-cutting? Let’s see if you are short-cutting. um, so an example, and I’ve done it, is doing work without sending a quote. Or getting a contract signed. 

[00:02:35] Donna: Yeah. Just getting started. Yep. Can get that done or it’s a quick deadline. I’ll just get the work done. Yeah. 

[00:02:40] Kris: Yeah. Especially if it’s a quick deadline. You know, the client is a repeat client and you don’t get a deposit and you shortcut your process. 

[00:02:48] Donna: Yeah. So these are short-cutting project management examples, what Kris is talking about there. It’s a project management shortcut that I am definitely guilty of that because when it’s a really tight deadline, you think like, oh, well it’s actually quicker for me just to jump in and get this job done, right? Well, no, it can come back and bite you. So you have to be very careful. 

[00:03:09] Kris: Yeah. Another one is doing additional work when you haven’t been paid for previous work. We’ve been talking about this a little bit lately. Cause it does pop up, especially when you’re put under pressure with a client.

[00:03:21] Donna: Ongoing clients and we love them and they are beautiful and they’re beautiful people. And the reason that they’re not paying their invoices might be completely innocent and it’s all fine. But if we allow them to just keep booking work in and not paying our invoices, we are really shooting ourselves in the foot with that one, because they’re not going to respect the value of the work that we’re doing. So before we start any project, we need to get paid for the work that we’ve done. We need to be paid up to date so that we can continue working for our beautiful clients. 

[00:03:53] Kris: Hmm. Otherwise you’re going to become resentful of your design business. It’s just going to feel awful. 

[00:03:59] Donna: And you’ll feel like you’re working for free constantly because where’s the money coming in. You need that money to be coming in as validation that you’re in business. So it’s a business transaction and we have to remember that. And it really, we do sort of blur the lines a little bit when we are in a really lovely relationship with our clients where we really love them. And it’s like, Aw, I’ll just quickly do it for you. I know I shouldn’t be doing it this way. It’s important, even with clients that become really close to us and we really love them, it’s really important, even more so, I think then to have really clear boundaries around payments and make sure you don’t be doing work when payments and things are not up to date.

[00:04:37] Kris: Yeah. And things like design process. Well, we all know that we can shortcut design process. So not doing concepts on paper or not actually using your brain to design. I’ve found in the past that if I go straight to computer the results are mediocre, they are substandard. And I eventually have to go back to my tried and true process, which is actually getting my brain to work for me. Doing roughs on paper. I, I am old school. I love pen on paper. I don’t use pencil. I use pen on beautiful paper 

[00:05:14] Donna: I’m the same. That’s why we like each other so much.

[00:05:21] Kris: There’s magic in that. Uh, you might be doing it on, you know, on an iPad using procreate or whatever. I always say pocreate. I know it’s not pocreate, it’s procreate. 

[00:05:32] Donna: I like pocreate, that’s cute.

[00:05:37] Kris: It’s like the technician comes in and designs instead of that beautiful conceptual brain that you’ve got. 

[00:05:43] Donna: Absolutely. Yeah, that is one of my biggest rants is that when we go straight to a computer, we are limited by the skillset that we have for that app. That’s it. If we haven’t expanded beyond the limitations of our immediate skillset well then that is the parameters that we’re designing to, instead of allowing our beautiful conceptual imagination and creative brain to take over and take us on this really limitless potential for this concept, it is absolutely limited when we work within the confines of, of what skills we have for an app. And we don’t want that. We want our creative solutions to be limitless. And we can only do that if we’re tapping into this gorgeous mind of ours and that’s what our clients are paying us for. So short-cutting just sort of becomes a formula based design and we want to avoid that at all costs. We don’t like formula, well, formula based design can have its little place sometimes. Uh, but generally for beautiful brands and brand strategy and all that sort of thing, you really do need to be not taking shortcuts. Absolutely. So let’s think about some more business systems where we might shortcut things. So maybe not following up when you said you would and you know, it comes across as being a little bit slack and it erodes trust with your client because they’re expecting you to touch base and then you don’t. So we’ve, we’ve got to make sure that we don’t get slack with that and cut corners with that.

[00:07:07] Kris: Yeah. We want to be reliable and stable. We want them to know what to expect from us. 

[00:07:12] Donna: Yeah, absolutely. And maybe um, being slack around boundaries, like being inconsistent with boundaries. So one day saying we must get paid before we commence this extra work. But then the next week, when the client calls you in a screaming hot hurry and says, I need it done, I need it done. And they haven’t paid their invoice and you go, ohh all right, I’ll do that for you. 

[00:07:34] Kris: Yeah, ok. I’ll let you get away with it the way we did this time, that’s definitely a shortcut that can bite you on the bum. And a big one for systems can be not organizing files properly. 

[00:07:45] Donna: Yeah. Now this one can come back at you. 

[00:07:47] Kris: Yeah, it really can, it’s like 6 months down the track or maybe two years down the track a past client or an existing client will say, I need a reprint of that brochure. And you’re like, what? 

[00:07:58] Donna: Where is it? Or you filed it in an obscure way with an obscure name. And you’re like, oh my goodness. And it takes you an hour to find it. You eventually may find it, but it’s like that hour, that hour with you, what is the value of that out with you? So short cutting it at the time has absolutely cost you money at this end. So, we’re always looking at how much is this shortcut really costing you. So you’ve gotta be really mindful of that. Take the time that two minutes to file correctly, it can turn into an hour, multiple hours or loss of a file in the future, which is even worse because it’s recreating something that, that you can not find. So, you know, think about the value of that. That’s thousands of dollars potentially. 

[00:08:44] Kris: Actually not even two minutes. When you think about just the, you know, archiving and saving properly is so quick, and I don’t know why we resist it you know, everybody dumping everything into the downloads folder. Just the desktop is crazy mess, but it’s really, doesn’t take much time to archive and organize and sort, and we love file sorting systems. Cause it makes to all the difference with your workflow. Yes. So then we’ve got all these business systems, but there’s other things that we can shortcut as well, in our lives. So our wellbeing and our mental health and our physical needs, we shortcut those all the time when we’re in businesses. It’s because we’re under the pump and we can get a bit stressed and we are putting people first and, you know, not putting our own needs first. And so what that can look like is, you know, shortcutting your breaks, shortcutting your exercise, you’re not actually going out and getting regular daily movement happening.

[00:09:44] Donna: Yeah, yep. Working long hours, like just not getting up, not moving from your desk, not having an ergonomic chair that you’re sitting on and, and the desk at the right height. So you’re really compromising your posture. You’re short cutting. Often when we’re working from home, we setup our desk on our lounge. Is our lounge really supporting our back? Are we short-cutting 

[00:10:09] Kris: Guilty! 

[00:10:10] Donna: Yeah, guilty as well. It might be comfy for a little while, but if you are, shortcutting in a few places where you’re shortcutting mind, body, and soul, you might be working long hours and you might be working really long hours on that lounge. And then it’s crippling.

[00:10:24] Kris: Sciatica kicking in. You’re getting this big sharp shooting pain right down your side. It is interesting that we are sitting all the time as designers. It’s an occupational hazard and it’s becoming known as like the sitting disease. It’s like the new smoking.  Really scary because of, lethargy and not moving and not getting up and not taking those breaks and not just moving through gravity.

[00:10:51] Donna: It’s not just to do with your posture and things like that. It can have bigger, more major impact on you and it, depending on your constitution and how your health is at the beginning of your beautiful business and where you start with your health and then it could rapidly decline if you’re not protecting it. When you start short cutting and working long hours and not taking breaks, not eating properly. The consequences can be quite diverse and quite broad. 

[00:11:21] Kris: I won’t meditate today. I won’t journal today. I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ve got a pressing client thing. I have to check my email. I have to do this first. I’ll put all that aside. And then you find that it’s it’s shortcut. You’re not getting it done. And, we love Allyson Byrd um, if you haven’t discovered Allyson Byrd, you should really check her out. Um, I think her Instagram handle is @iamallysonbyrd, anyway. We’ll make sure of that and we’ll put it in the show notes. Uh, she’s fantastic. And she said something that really shifted my mind around it because often we’re short-cutting because of a deadline or because of finances or whatever it is. And she has a little mantra where she had to shift it as well, because instead of going to the gym and being with her personal trainer, she wasn’t honoring her body. She wasn’t respecting her body or her personal trainers time. And she would cancel. And instead do that hour of work because that hour would bring money, right? So she changed her intention and her intention was I make money when I work out. And you can change that to anything. I make money when I meditate. I make money when I go for a walk. My business grows when I spend time with my family. 

[00:12:37] Donna: Yeah. My business is supported when I’m supporting my body, that type of thing. So just remembering that you can have all of these beautiful things and support your body and support your mental health while your business is flourishing. So I love that. Thank you, Alysson Byrd. That’s amazing. Yeah. 

[00:12:57] Kris: So all that stuff, all that short-cutting can lead to some really, some horrible symptoms, some horrible side effects because it’s can be serious. You know, it’s not just, I’m gonna do a little shortcut here and there. It won’t make much difference, but it really does make a difference because if you’re not looking after yourself, you’re going to have poor concentration ability, which equals poor conceptual ability, which equals bad results, loss of clients. because you’re unreliable. Making mistakes and stuffing up. 

[00:13:28] Donna: It’s the whole domino effect. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah, 

[00:13:32] Kris: And then you get feelings of not enoughness I’m not worthy because my business isn’t working.

[00:13:38] Donna: The worst of it, I think is the resentment that comes and then the inevitable end of your business. Unnecessarily because you were just cutting corners just here and just, they’re just here and that just there. And then all of a sudden when you least expect it, your business is now really wobbly. And the resentment that is there is just so dissatisfying. So that to me is really sad, especially for things that can be caught before we get into the habit of cutting that corner too often. So notice a habit, notice a little corner that you keep cutting. You might have a little corner that you cut on repeat. So notice that you do that and catch it and correct it and keep correcting it. Just little tiny corrections one after the other, until you’re operating this beautiful buoyant business where, you know your systems are strong, you know you haven’t cut any corners and you won’t be guilty of any of these things. So I won’t have to worry about any of these symptoms. That’s our wish for you. 

[00:14:40] Kris: What you were saying there reminds me of that plane analogy. I think it’s Martha Beck who talks about it and it’s about those little directional changes like one degree, one degree, one degree, and where you land is so very different with those little one degree course changes. You can just think of it like that. And those little one degrees can take you off course as well. So if you’re short-cutting you can really go pear shaped. And that resentment word that you used is, is a really big key one. I think that’s one of the biggest things that really can hurt a design business is that built up resentment, that happens over a period of time and you just can’t go on anymore.

[00:15:18] Donna: It’s not what you expected. It’s not what you thought it would be. So what we say is, okay, what is it that you want it to be? What do you expect your business to be? And take it back to that. And like we were saying, is those little changes, change, little change, two little change, three little change four. And you’ll be back there. 

[00:15:36] Kris: Yeah. So let’s not shortcut. Good luck with that. 

[00:15:39] Donna: Until next time. 

[00:15:40] Kris: If you have any questions, DM us. We’re available for a little chat on the DM’s, for sure. 

[00:15:47] Donna: Yes, love to hear from you. Okay. 

[00:15:49] Kris: Okay. Have a beautiful day. Bye!