With effort, you can create quality work every time.

Follow these steps to create quality work every time.

Use it as a checklist and add other items you find help you create quality work every time.

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Steps to create quality work every time:

  1. Understand the goal, the expectations, and what success looks like. Ask questions to create clarity here and take notes to refer back.

  2. Proactively plan your deliverables, identifying the milestones, the actions, and sequencing them, as outlined in the planning chapter.

  3. Secure resources, budget, people, etc. for your effort. Block the time on your calendar.

  4. Execute the work. If it seems too routine, be creative and mix it up. Give yourself challenges to finish it in a certain amount of time (just check your work). Work backwards. Play music while you work. See if you can always finish a day early. Something to give you a dopamine hit.

  5. Review your plan regularly, daily or weekly, to make sure it’s on track.

  6. Check your work. If you’re writing something, review it at least 2 times for overall message and proofread for mistakes. It’s easy to have little mistakes and by reviewing, you’re more likely to catch them.

  7. Keep stakeholders, including your manager, updated on the status of the effort. Weekly email status, or verbal updates in team meetings, etc.

  8. Ask for specific feedback from stakeholders to improve upon what you’ve created.

  9. Check your work back against the goal, expectations, and definition of success.

  10. Deliver your final product and verify with the recipients that it meets their needs.

Action: pick one item that you need to work on and follow these steps above. See how it works for you.