Last week we took a look at how to increase the quantity of your work output. But if all you’re doing is producing an enormous quantity of useless drivel, you might find that it’s not going to get you anywhere (or it might get you somewhere, but you’re probably not going to like where).

So how do we make sure that we’re producing high quality work that’s sure to get us noticed? (In the right way, that is.)

Unfortunately, there’s no guaranteed method for success (contrary to a multitude of TV infomercials), but there ARE lots of things we can do to help us along the way. Here are a few things I’ve come across that really help me.

Success is a state of mind

I realize that sounds very “new-agey” but that’s not quite what I mean. And regardless, it’s not quite that simple either. But let’s look at things this way. If you are constantly thinking you’re going to fail, then chances are you very likely will. Good work comes from hard work, but also from confidence. Your confidence in your own work also affects how other people will see it. If you submit work and then immediately begin temporizing and apologizing, then whoever is evaluating it is going to have a less than positive opinion of it when they’re looking at it. This doesn’t matter whether it’s your boss, a customer, a peer or a professor. Give them a good frame of reference by which to judge your work.

These next two tips are somewhat related. First, while quantity doesn’t necessarily indicate quality, you’re more likely to have more good ideas if you’re having more ideas in general. So take some time to think. Do some brainstorming or mind mapping before you start a new project or endeavour. Get as many possible solutions together when trying to solve a problem, no matter how far fetched or outrageous they may seem.

The second half of this is setting expectations. Don’t expect 100% of the ideas you come up with to be home runs the first time out. This is for a number of reasons.

One, that can put a lot of pressure on you, which can in turn stifle the creativity you’re working so hard to capture, and thus perhaps hide the solutions you really need. And two, if you work under the assumption that everything you do is going to end up being exactly what you need, you could really be setting yourself up for failure, or at the very least some unbalanced time spent fixing mistakes far later than you should be.

Let me show you what I mean. For the past for weeks, my fiancé and I have been looking for a wedding photographer (which we’ve found, and are very happy thus far). A big part of this process, even before meeting with potential candidates, involved speaking with some of our recently married friends to get their recommendations, or warnings, as the case may be. One of the things that kept coming up with people who were unhappy was the fact that their photographer generally didn’t shoot enough images to give them any choices. They were left with just enough images to make the album they wanted, but they were stuck with images that were either of lower quality, or just didn’t seem significant, when perhaps they would have preferred more of a different part of their day. But if the photography only took 200 photos with the intention of creating a 200 photo album, expecting that every one would be perfect, they were sorely mistaken.

This leads to another tip, a habit that I’m always working on, and can definitely help.

Write first, edit later.

This doesn’t have to be just for writing and writers. Drilling down, it basically just means get things out without stifling your voice. If you’re working on a website design, put together some mock-ups in their entirety before cutting elements out. Working on a blog post? Write it out once, and then feel free to cut, paste, change, trash or rewrite to your heart’s content. Presentations? Throw together your outline in as many slides as it takes, and then start paring back to what you actually need.

This habit can really be applied to anything you do, including idea generation. Blogger Scott H Young wrote a series of articles covering this idea, on the 2 flow model of creativity.

They already invented the wheel.

Another thing to remember is that work doesn’t just disappear into the ether the moment it’s completed. Rather, it becomes a part of your background, your repertoire, your reference material to be drawn upon.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, look back at your previous work. Need a template for something? Maybe you’ve already done something similar. Already compiled those budget projects once? Why do all the legwork again? Don’t force yourself to reinvent the wheel, and instead use this extra time to work on the higher-level aspects of your projects.

To wrap things up, I’ll leave you with two statements:

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

The good is the enemy of the perfect.

These are both true, as confusing as it may seem. It’s up to you to decide which is called for in any given situation and devote the proper amount of effort to the tasks at hand.

Through making these changes in your frame of mind, and creating a few new habits, you should begin to see some improvements in the quality of your work that don’t necessarily involve you sacrificing your work life balance on the altar of corporate success. Try these out for a while and see what works for you. If you’ve got some other tips, or want to expand on any of these, please do so in the comments!

Cheers,

Adam