Professional Productivity Tips for Web Designers
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If you’re a designer, increasing your productivity will allow you to create more in less time, enabling you to take more clients and make more money.
Pro web designers almost always have a system they follow for maximum productivity. Establishing your own methods that fit your work style will benefit you the most, but when you’re just getting started, some practical advice from seasoned professionals in your line of work can accelerate your skill development. Here are some of the key tips from experience freelance designers.
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Key Productivity Principles
By keeping the following principles, systems, and tools in mind and on hand, you can learn how to speed up your Squarespace design process without ever sacrificing quality.
The Pareto Principle
Sometimes all you need is a shift in perspective to improve your performance. The Pareto Principle can help create that shift in your mind so that none of your efforts feel wasted.
This is what we also all commonly know as the 80/20 rule:
About 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your effort.
The Pareto Principle gives you permission to stop wasting time trying to achieve perfection.
For example, a career designer can often create 80 percent of a site in about two to four hours. But fine-tuning the site to get it from 80 to 100 percent can take an additional eight to sixteen hours. For the first pass, it’s not worth putting in all those hours to achieve that extra 20 percent.
Which brings the next related principle:
Rule of 80
When working on the first draft of a website for a client, we’ve learned to stop when we’ve reached 80 percent completion, even when tempted to do more.
Turn in your first design draft when you’ve achieved 80 percent.
Now your client can see the big picture and offer feedback you can use to finish the rest. This approach saves you from having to redo a lot of work.
Turn It into a Game
Making tasks fun can help you work more productively.
Turn your job into a game by setting goals, as if you’re playing a video game.
We love to challenge ourselves against the clock. We’re constantly asking how quickly can we complete quality work. Can it get done beautifully in three hours instead of seven? Could we create an About page in less than twenty minutes?
The thrill of the challenges you set for myself can heavily motivate you to work more productively and without distraction. The key to sticking to this ideology is all in the next principle:
Reward Yourself
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Every game needs a prize, right? So why not reward yourself!
Give yourself a reward after you’ve complete a challenging job.
If you’re finding it difficult to stay on track, promise yourself a reward when you finish the job – whatever you think will motivate you. It could be going out for ice cream or downloading new music from a favorite artist, for example.
Productivity Systems
You can tap into or devise useful systems to help you become more productive as a web developer. Making use of the right systems can even help you produce greater levels of creativity.
Use a Process
Put a process in place.
When doing design work, don’t just flow with it. Following this four-step process can speed up your work tremendously.
Backend set-up
Initial design
Small pages design
Large pages design
Using this process can save you a great deal of time. Think of it as a process template - the key steps you have to execute first.
Eliminate Back and Forth
Do not engage in endless back and forth with clients.
Back and forth communications can derail a project, stopping your progress abruptly. Also, don’t second-guess yourself; this can be draining.
Instead, use the rule of 80, follow your process, and present your draft to the client. Feedback at this stage is helpful; feedback before you reach this stage is counterproductive.
Minimize Distractions
Focus on a demanding task without distractions.
Put your phone in another room so it doesn’t interrupt you. Don’t let random text messages, Instagram updates, or social media posts steal your time. It can take up to 20 minutes to reset your concentration on a solitary task because of one outside distraction. Did hear your phone go off? If you know you’ll easily be sucked into another thought or conversation, let it rest. In fact - use checking your phone as your reward mentioned earlier!
Create a clear space to work and stay in the deep work zone!
Professional Productivity Tools
Never underestimate the power of the right tools to boost your productivity to new levels.
Handheld Timer
This simple, low-tech tool is a remarkable productivity-boosting gadget. Set it and forget it as you dive into your work. When it beeps, you know a specified length of time has passed, and you can keep working, take a break, give yourself that reward, or switch projects.
Dual Monitor
Having a second screen to work with lets you see twice as much at once, preventing the wasted time that results when you have only one screen and you’re forced to switch back and forth between tabs.
Paste App
Paste is a useful app that saves everything you copy. It stores whatever you copy on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, enabling you to access any text, images, links, or files you’ve copied whenever you need them.
At Launch Happy we use Paste extensively to access everything from hex codes to text that’s repeated on a site. This is an easy shortcut to use that will save you a lot of time.
Checklist
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Finally, write down on a sheet of paper a simple checklist that lets you monitor your progress. Check off tasks as you complete them. Notion, Evernote, Excel, even just a Sticky Note can be helpful tools in this regard. Many people find it incredibly helpful to have a visual aid that keeps track of their many tasks, from how much of a relief it can be to not have to try and remember everything at once (as you’re also trying to troubleshoot a tricky code, or concentrate without distraction).
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