Author: Matt McCue / Source: Adobe 99U
It may not feel like it’s time, but does it ever? Here’s how to end your creative endeavors in the least painful way possible.
In college, I started a department blog where a group of students and I would interview faculty, alumni, and our peers about their work and practice.
We covered critiques and openings adventured off campus to offer readers a peek at post-collegiate life. A few months into it, I couldn’t help but be proud of what we had created. The blog had taken off, albeit within our small department. I was thrilled.So, when I received a Twitter DM to meet with John Maeda, the prolific designer who was then president of our school, I proudly marched into his office, prepared to tout the successes of our fledgling publication.
John listened gratuitously as I patted myself on the back. He offered kudos for getting stories from our school out into the world, but also gave me a piece of unexpected advice: “When it’s time for it to die, let it die.” Sure, things were good now, but eventually our blog would serve its purpose and become irrelevant. The worst thing I could do, he said, was to try to keep it alive once its time had come.
“We were just now hitting our stride—why should I begin bracing myself for its decline?”
I was hurt, then angry. I had created this new platform that was having a positive impact on our community and connecting our department to a larger dialogue happening online. Of all people, I thought this alleged technocrat would be our largest supporter. We were just now hitting our stride—why should I begin bracing myself for its decline?
But he was right. Eventually, the project lost steam, students lost interest, and it became a struggle to get the site updated on a regular basis. I stretched myself too thin trying to fill each gap left by someone who dropped out of the project, which led to compounding resentment until I, too, quit. The blog sat atrophying online, a digital tombstone where lay the ambitions of a group of overzealous students who eventually found other ways to fill their time.
Recognize the warning signs
If I had been in the right headspace to not take John’s words personally, I might have been able to recognize the early hints of necrosis before I, too, started to suffer its effects. Perhaps our team could have ended the blog gracefully rather than over bitter emails to contributors, frustrated that no one had the bandwidth or will to keep it going.
Over time, I’ve gotten better at recognizing the signs of death and, with it, when it becomes time to euthanize a particular project or endeavor. On a team, it can manifest in the form of people coming in later, leaving earlier, caring less. Perhaps it’s a spike in bickering or conflicts that arise out of seemingly nothing, alluding to…
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