My dad’s version of the advice Ken gives here is “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” Now, if only I heeded any of this advice . . .
There’s an old adage that carpenters and builders use:
Measure twice, cut once
The idea is to make sure that when you measure out a piece of wood for whatever job you’re working on, you measure it properly, and recheck your work, because once you’ve cut the wood, it’s cut. If you make a mistake, you can’t glue it back together, and you waste both time and resources.
I learned this lesson the hard way recently, when posting one of my video blogs online. I uploaded the video to YouTube, embedded it in my blog, and published it. Done. Right?
Wrong.
Since I’m fairly new to video and editing (using only the free software I have on my computer), I made a mistake. One of my friends emailed me to inform me that my video included about one-minute of a false start at the beginning, and then I started over. Thankfully it was a rather innocuous out-take, but it looked really stupid and unprofessional. I should know better to check my work before I post it.
So, I had to go back, re-edit the raw video (which I’m glad I had saved!), wait for it to process properly, re-upload it to YouTube, re-embed on my blog, make sure everything was correct, and then delete the bad video. This took up about an hour of my time on an already busy Monday morning.
The sad thing is this happens to me all the time. While some of my blog posts are written from start to finish in one-sitting, others are pieced together, like Frankenstein, from a variety of sources, out of order, over a period of time. This leaves room for a lot of error, and very often I’ll get an email from my mom telling me about an error she has found, and I have to go back and correct it.
Now understand: I am horrible at managing my time. I’m pretty A.D.D.; I multi-task 24/7, and I can be pretty careless and lazy. So while I don’t have any great tips about how to schedule and manage your time, I can offer you this:
Measure twice, cut once
Do the job right the first time. Before you hit the publish button, review what you have done. Try to make sure your work is error-free. It may take a little time up front, but it will save you time later when you DON’T have to go back and fix your mistakes when it might already be too late.
Ken Mueller is the owner of Inkling Media, a small Social Media and Inbound Marketing company. He has more than 30 years of media and marketing experience, primarily in radio. Ken is passionate about baseball (the Phillies) and music (though he can’t play a lick or sing even one note). He lives in Lancaster with his wife and 3 kids (all of whom are extremely intelligent and good looking).
