Deadline oriented.

Best quality or greatest flaw?

I was horrified. I knew people worked that way, but it was the first time I’d heard someone admit it aloud.

I was in the center row of a 15-passenger van headed back from the day’s excursions, amidst a press trip with other food and travel writers. Discussions about deadlines were happening behind me when someone said - the problem was that she knew her editor's true deadline, so if she submitted her work by then, it didn’t matter if she missed the earlier deadline that had been set for her.

I have a rule about my work - the core of my purpose for a project isn’t the photos I deliver, the words I write, or the guidance I provide. It’s making the job of the person I am working for easier.

In 12 years, I’ve completely forgotten one deadline (whoops!) and I’ve asked for an extension maybe three times. Other than that, I’ve never missed one, whether it was a client project deadline or self-imposed due date.

I used to shy away from announcing this. A lot of my life, I’ve gotten the goody-two-shoes accusation and the people-pleaser label. I once received a performance review that essentially told me that my organization and deadline orientation was a negative quality because it caused me to expect too much of other people.

Yes, I guess that drive to meet a deadline can work against you in an academic setting where you’ll need to jump rope through a maze of red tape and approvals to get anything done.

But the truth is that I refuse to make my emergency someone else's emergency. I know those I’m working for or with have their own deadlines. The final product, the project completion, is dependent upon my meeting mine. I choose to give them the time they need to complete what they need to do. I choose to make their jobs easier.

I believe this has come back to me tenfold. I work with many amazing clients who trust me and give me creative freedom. There is value in not being micromanaged. If meeting every deadline I get is what it takes to have this be my career, I’ll hit them every time.

As I’ve taught others in the areas I work in, a common question is - how do you create work that stands out? The answer to this is to get good at what you do and then be even better at being easy to work with.

I’m a good photographer and a decent writer, but there are plenty of photographers and writers out there who can do the job as well or better than me. And a lot of those better photographers and writers miss deadlines and are inflexible in their art form (i.e. difficult to work with).

While an end product should be the highest quality we’re capable of, it’s not always about what you deliver. More often, it’s about you and how you deliver it. This is what that whole - you are unique, you bring something special to the table - message is all about, especially when you work in oversaturated markets.

I’m a big fan of the self-care movement. The - put yourself first, don’t let people walk all over you - mentality. Boundaries and protecting your energy are important. So I know prioritizing other people and helping make their jobs easier isn’t always a popular opinion. But it’s served me well in being a person people want to work with. While I don’t care much about what people think of me, I do care about being enjoyable to be around.

If, like so many of us, you are struggling to stand out in a sea of things that seem the same, maybe it’s not so much the product or your art that needs the focus. Maybe it’s through relationships and how you work that you can be the star.

What do you think?

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