15 vital lessons for those doing creative work

If you’re in a field involving “creative” work or people, you probably signed up to craft meaningful, fulfilling experiences.

If you’re idealistic like me, you might even say you’re here to bring beauty into the world. Yet when it comes to creative work, we face certain occasional struggles: frustrating projects, tight timelines, vague requests, creative drain.

There is no magic fix for creative troubles, but over time I’ve learned a few lessons. Whether they were simple realizations or game-changing revelations, they’ve helped me in one way or another.

If you want to improve your creative efforts and the way you work with others, here are 15 things that should help.

On clients:

1. Respond right now.

This habit has the highest impact-to-effort ratio imaginable. That’s strategist speak for making a huge impact with very little effort.

I used to think I couldn’t respond to client emails until I had an exhaustive response to every item the client detailed. That was until a custom music vendor, Score A Score, showed me that quick replies as simple as, “We’re on it,” or, “Thanks—tied up for a few hours but will respond in full,” can be an incredibly valuable service tactic.