with Britt Reints
Forget the 9 to 5; Full Time, All the Time is a blog about the mobile working life - when you have the freedom to work from anywhere and the responsibility of always having your smartphone turned on. Britt Reints works as a freelance writer while traveling fulltime in an RV with her husband and two kids. She explores balancing real-life bills with an unconventional work life, and finding time to maintain relationships with family and friends.
You can also find Britt at InPursuitOfHappiness.net.
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Last month, author Neil Gaiman spoke at the graduation ceremony for the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. As you might expect, his advice was geared towards people pursuing a career in the arts; a refrain of “make good art” was repeatedly met with applause. But the successful writer also offered a simple recipe for success that can be applied to any work life.
In order to get repeat business as a creator, Neil suggests you only have to do two out of three things:
It doesn’t matter which two - you can be generally easy to work with and timely and not be the very at what you do, and you’ll still find yourself with a steady stream of work. At least, that’s what Mr. Gaiman says. My experience says he’s right.
I’ve found this recipe works in the corporate world and in the freelance market. It applies to sales people as much as it does writers. Work-at-home dads and forty-hours-a-week moms can find success in their chosen jobs using the same guidelines.
Be nice. Or be talented. Or meet your deadlines. Do two out of three and you’re doing better than most and likely to be kept on/rehired/referred. That doesn’t say much about the workforce as a whole, but I think it gives us all pretty attainable standards to achieve.
Did you watch the video? What did you think of Neil Gaiman’s advice to young graduates?
I watched the video and it made me wonder why I get repeat work: Because I am easy to work with and meet my deadlines or because I’m good and what I do and meet my deadlines or because I’m good at what I do and easy to work with.
Gave me pause, I’ll tell you that.
Megan | June 27th, 2012 at 9:20 am
I came up with my list of 3 years ago:
Nice to work with
Intelligent/competent
Good work ethic
Interestingly similar. I’ve worked with awesome people who have all three, and with people who have none of them but still manage to BS their way through for years. I will say that the latter are horrible for employee morale and show weakness in their leaders.
I agree that you can get away with having just two of them, but if you don’t have the “competent” one, you won’t get promoted very far in a business where that sort of thing matters to clients/customers. In some industries, the same is true of the “nice guy” one. So I guess if you plan on being an a-hole all your life, or if you’re not the brightest bulb in the box, you can rule out certain careers. (Now what are the chances that any of the students hearing this suspect they are short on either of these?)
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tresor paris | July 1st, 2012 at 4:25 am
I am an #1 & 2 and I do get rehired in freelance. But I also do work to meet deadlines, I just often also work the deadlines so they function for me. If you need it tomorrow, I’m not your gal. If you need Thursday by 5pm you’ll have it Thursday by 5pm -but don’t be upset if it isn’t there Thursday at noon!
Overall I find people place a high value on deadline, at least in my line of work so even if that isn’t your forte you have to put some effort into it.
Mich | July 2nd, 2012 at 11:25 am