How Efficient is Too Efficient?

One Sunday night a few months ago, I discovered my email was gone.

My husband needed something printed, and swore to me that he had sent the file to me several times. So, I logged on to gmail (my other email) to see if I could figure out what was happening, and I discovered to my horror that my website was gone. Not just down, but totally gone—domain name available for purchase, website down, all of it, which meant that my email was gone, too. Holy ******************.

My internet provider happens to be a friend of mine, so I put in a ticket request through his website and sent him a text begging for help. Understanding it was Sunday night and no reasonable person would be working, I pushed aside my panic and began trying to figure out how to fix it. I’m a pretty good internet sleuth, and I was able to locate a phone number buried deep in a domain name register and got it sorted out. Turns out, I had purchased weihercreative.com for 10 years and then missed a renewal email somewhere along the way, so the domain name expired and took everything else with it. Luckily, I caught it the same day it expired, so nobody else bought it in the meantime, and I was back up and running an hour later.

So what did I do to avoid this catastrophe in the future? Renewed for 10 more years, and felt a huge sense of relief. Problem solved. Or was it?

When I relayed the story to my mentor, Ilise Benun, a few days later, she asked me if I thought I was being a little too efficient, and that stopped me in my tracks. I thought I’d been so smart to renew for another long term. I’d solved the problem and made sure I didn’t have to deal with it again for quite some time. In actuality, I had kicked the can down the road and pretty much guaranteed it’ll happen again in 9 years. And even though I know where my domain name is now and have saved all of the information to easily find and renew it later, who knows what’ll happen in the next decade?

What I should have done was renew for a shorter period of time. Then, I’d get the benefits of not thinking about it too frequently, but just often enough to be mindful of it and have more control. Technically less efficient, but a lot more efficient mentally.

Do you have tasks on autopilot just to be more “efficient” with your time?

It’s easy in the moment to think you’re helping yourself by refreshing your ads or reviewing your website down the road, but the reality is businesses change, technologies advance, and—as we’ve experienced ourselves—a pandemic can upend our plans and force us to take new directions. So, instead of opting for the “set it and forget it” mode, let’s chat about how Weiher Creative can help you get your design tasks on a regular schedule. Talk about efficient!

And, if you’re thinking about hiring a graphic design agency, here’s some advice on analyzing their graphic design samples before you make a commitment.