We’re doing an exciting promotion this week for our new book, The Wealthy Freelancer. So in keeping with the spirit of things, I decided to make today’s post an excerpt from the book. Enjoy!
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Take Time To Incubate
Before I sat down to write this chapter, I made some notes about the topics I wanted to cover. I planned out the stories and examples I wanted to use to reinforce the points I was going to make and mapped out my general approach to the subject matter. This is typical planning stuff. And you probably do something similar for the types of projects you handle as a freelancer. But then I did something you may not do. I stuck my notes in the project file folder and didn’t look at them again for a couple days. Why didn’t I just get started on the next step in the process — writing the darned thing — right away? Because I knew I would get this chapter done a lot faster if I gave it time to incubate.
I know what you’re thinking. “Take time off from a project to get it done sooner?” But giving a project some incubation time — especially between natural steps in the process such as planning and writing or writing and polishing — makes the work go much smoother and faster.
Of course, you know this already. Think of the last time you got stuck on a project. You’re working on a new computer program for a client and, no matter how much you rack your brain, you just can’t seem to make any progress. So you take a break, perhaps out of frustration, and go work on something else. Or take a walk. Or sleep on it. Then, when you return to the project again, what happens? Voilà! Things just seem to flow again. That’s incubation at work.
Marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is a master of using incubation to work more productively. In her booklet, No More Writer’s Block! she describes being able to write a press release in about 45 minutes when most other professionals take at least two hours or more. “I gather all the information I need,” she says, “then wait a day or two [incubation] until I feel like the press release is itching to come out of me. And that’s when I write it, quickly and easily.”
I’m not going to get into the science of how incubation works here. (As if I understood it!) Just know that when you take a physical break from a project, some part of your brain is still working on it. Your subconscious is churning away: generating new ideas, trying out different approaches to the problem, asking new questions, dreaming up inventive new approaches.
Do I hear someone balking, “I don’t have time to stick a project in a drawer for a couple days. I have tight deadlines to meet!” Well, if you have tight deadlines to meet, you need incubation more than ever. Think about it. Which would you rather do? Struggle with a project for six hours straight until you stumble, exhausted, to the finish line? Or spend a couple hours reviewing and absorbing the information, then taking a break for a few hours, then finishing the piece in another hour or two, feeling refreshed and energized? Ah …. I’d choose number two.
And by the way, incubation doesn’t have to take days or even hours. Sometimes all that’s required is a walk around the block.
–Steve Slaunwhite is the co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer. Grab your copy this week from Amazon.com and get up to $321 in free instructional materials. Details here >>
Photo Courtesy planetschwa on Flickr
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I totally understand what you’re saying, Steve, but from the client’s angle, incubation time is lost time. And just as a reminder to everyone, it’s clients who pay our bills.
Take the Marcia Yudkin case as an example: “I gather all the information I need,” she says, “then wait a day or two [incubation] until I feel like the press release is itching to come out of me. And that’s when I write it, quickly and easily.”
The client will most likely compare this with “most other professionals take at least two hours or more”.
So, what you as a client are getting is a) press release in 2 days, b) press release in 2 hours. Guess which I would choose. As a client, I couldn’t care less about whether you sweat or not.
Hi Kimmo,
If a client wants a press release done, do you really get it finished two hours later? If so, that’s a rush job — a totally different animal.
For regular project work, I’m suggesting that you build in incubation time into your schedule. For example, do a rough draft of the press release Monday morning, switch to some other project work while that draft “cooks”, then return to finish the release Wednesday morning.
A three day turnaround for a press release job is reasonable for most clients.
Steve
I do this and it works wonders for me – I think of it as ‘brewing’ I build in the brew time plus a little padding to the due date I offer clients. Most are thrilled I offer to turn something in within a week that they’ve put off writing for months… and using this method I usually end up turning it in several days early. There are days I literally hop out of bed dying to write the thing I’d been dreading 2 days earlier.
In terms of what the client perceives… even if I got off the phone with a client and did happen to churn out their press release 2 hours after speaking with them, I’d never let them know that. I think that kind of turnaround can create the perception you’re not good enough to have an existing workload, and that you rush through the work that does come in. If I am asked to turn something in so quickly (very rare, most know I work from home and have a special needs toddler) I charge a rush rate. I always tell my clients I will “schedule them into my project calendar” – I think it gives them confidence their document is getting the attention it deserves, and tells them I’ve got other work, which means I’m trusted by other businesses (in my market, that means other people they know personally) . This client scheduling method… to come around the original point… allows me the brew time necessary to do a good job.
I’ve often told new clients about my ‘incubation time’ when we discuss a project for the first time. I’ve find that most clients appreciate it. They see that it’s part of the creative process and that it ultimately results in higher quality work. As well, it gives them insight into your process. It’s the sort of “quality” process that might be just enough to differentiate you from another freelancer who doesn’t bother to point this out. The key is to make sure you explain it as part of the normal project timeline, not something that adds time to the project, which it really isn’t anyway, as Steve points out.
All of that said – I’d be interested in knowing what some journalists (current or former) might think about incubation? Often times, there just isn’t time to let a story sit an incubate, especially if you’re a staff journalist with a hostile editor! I wonder if a journalist would see this incubation time as necessity, luxury, or frivolity?
I have used this principle for decades in my previous job when designing software. Not only does that involve writing, but you have plenty of complex problems to solve along the way.
Leave the outline and some notes lying somewhere for anything from 2 days to 2 weeks and hey presto, that layer of problems is solved when you come back (or the ideas jump out at you while driving – I found the M40 particularly inspiring!). Of course that just reveals the next layer lying in wait, but when writing a more simple document, more often than not there is no other layer.
I definitely endorse this. With just one downside – you start to dream about your projects. Constructive but you can begin to feel there is nowhere to hide!
Lindsay
I couldn’t agree more. I find great value in the incubation process. I’ve seen it most often referred to when discussing the stage between drafting and editing, but as you point out it can be used at any stage. Just today, I received a phone call from a potential client. After reviewing my notes from the call, I could have gone right to work researching his website, etc., but instead decided to put my notes away and come back to it later, thinking I’d like to let my brain absorb what he told me before moving forward.
For my clients, this part of the process is transparent. I don’t tell them about it; I simply work it into my timelines. Not that I’m trying to hide it; I just think it’s something like getting snacks while I work, or whether or not I have the window open–it’s irrelevant from their perspective, as long as I meet agreed-upon quality standards and deadlines.
I always do this. I didn’t even know it was part of a methodology, I thought it was just a normal way to facilitate creativity. I do research, take a break, outline, take a break, write, take a break, etc. Whether the break is for hours or days depends on the project type and deadlines but you do have to have some time for ideas to develop. If I just churn out material the quality is really sub par.
One thing I do related to this is I always carry around a notebook to jot down ideas. As the project is brewing in my head the ideas come unexpectedly, so I need to write something down to jog my memory when I sit back down to put together the next steps. Sometimes the ideas are words or phrases, sometimes I write half a page. I would say ideas like this come to me most often while driving. It’s not at all uncommon for me to pull over and take 5 to write before I forget the thought. Unfortunately, while “concepting “/ “incubating” behind the wheel, I’ve also been known to miss a turn or an exit ramp.
slr