How to Avoid the Proverbial Procrastination Zone.
There is no denying it. Everyone procrastinates. From homework in high school to adult errands, real work to returning friends’ phone calls, procrastination permeates our everyday lives in more ways than fifty-five.
In a business environment, it happens to a degree of certitude, mainly because we are all busy with other things: thinking about work, life, kids, etc. The point is, that it happens. Admitting it is the first step to salvation. Insert [LOL] here.
When designing for a client, any client, certain things get precedent over others. Research to payment, these things usually get the front seat at the show, but the content, the guts of the site, is just as important, if not more so. Don’t fall victim to the tendency to put it off until tomorrow what you should do today. Because if you do, you may be looking at an awful lot of tomorrows before your new site is ready to go.
A website design or redesign project is made up of many moving parts. Understandably. It’s not just layout, logo, homepage, and general information; at most times, the client is a set of people bound by a complex thread of decision making and motivation to act on said process. This can be difficult.
From both ends, each step in the process is often very complicated and time consuming. However, what most do not realize, is that very often content is the driving factor that determines the success or failure of your website.
Make it the First Priority
“I know we’ve got 50 pages of content to get to you. We’ll get to that soon. But first, can you make the logo pop more?”
Getting your content in order is critical to any successful design and/or redesign. Don’t wait until the end to handle it. We’ve seen too many launches delayed for months and months, because the content writing was left to be addressed after delivery of a shell website.
Get the hard part out of the way first; like doing your homework right when you get home, that way you can go outside and play after dinner.Whatever your concept is for the amount of content work required, it’s best to assume it will be more than you expect.
Do. Not. Get. Overwhelmed.
All of us tend to look at our assignments as a whole and get overwhelmed. And not everyone is a writer. Yet, with some pre-planning and an understanding of your own personal procrastinating pitfalls, the process becomes easier, and you’ll be back to enjoying the lawyer life, or the chef life, or whatever it is you do best, besides worrying about web content.
Writing content is an art and a science. For most, writing can be astonishingly difficult. That said, there is always the possibility to leave that task up to us. Content is like homework; we will do your homework for you.
Tips to Make It Easier
- Outline the pages of the site that you will need to write content for.
- Break each of the content pages into headings and subheadings, and lean towards having the content more broken up rather than less.
- Within each of your headings, write 3-4 sentences. If it is going to require significantly more than that, break it up into two headings.
- Sit on it. After writing it is best to come back a little later and see if it makes sense. It most likely will require more editing.
- Once you have a good starting point, share your content with your colleagues and web designer to see how it will work within the construct of the website (they will thank you for this).