Last week I had my first freelance Flash gig, and it was more educational than I expected–or wanted–it to be…

The fault lie entirely on my side. The mission specs were vague and the timetable insane, but I understood that going in…and ultimately failed to adapt.

As a Flash hobbyist and learner, I've developed a consistent work process: ponder, plan, execute. Under the pressure and excitement of my first gig, I threw this process out.

This was a mistake. In the context of this particular gig, whether this process is optimal or not just doesn't matter, because it's my current process, and I can't swap it out for a new one with the ease of Keanu Reeves learning kung-fu in the Matrix.

The trick will be to adapt my current process to the task at hand. I should treat my work habits like components, throwing them into projects and parameterizing them accordingly, rather than trying to revamp habits, a longer-term undertaking.

Now I know.

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