Stress Control for Motion Designers
It's about time to feel the relief.
Stress and Anxiety is a disaster of our new world. Here are couple of cool technics that will help you stay alive during intensive work load.
Looks believable. But unfortunately it's not so simple. Managing stress relies on many technics. But the truth remains the same - you're not managing the load if the anxiety is persistent. If you feel the stress, then it's not just disturbing thoughts. The brain sents signals to mobilize the body for a complex task. And when you don't know how to accomplish the task, feels like someone pushes you into the chasm. For motion designers this usually happens when it's needed to do the project but the task is unclear and provides many options.
You can't fight with 100 dragons at the same time, but you can definitely choose only one victim. Shorten the list of options to some obvious elements, that is possible to do and start the work immediately. After accomplishing several tasks it will be removed immobilizing mind block, and you will be able to move forward and some relieve will help you fight the stress.
Humans are making mistakes and it's normal to make mistakes even in serious projects. At least you have to accept this thought for a short time. Any approach should estimate time for work and budget with a margin reserve for at least 40%. Because even smartest people are doing not more than 75% of work correctly during the task. Small proof is here from NASA : Study observed that between the years of 2000 to 2016, 41.3% of all small satellites launched failed or partially failed. Of these small satellite missions, 24.2% were total mission failures, another 11% were partial mission failures, and 6.1% were launch vehicle failures.
We're not launching satellites, less negativity please.
Certainly it's always better to do something "Good" than just "Something". Planning is necessary, just to see complete route and then apply it to your project. But it's needed experience and sometimes luck to achieve best results.
I've asked ChtGPT about thought approaches of 2 people. Here are these approaches: First approach 1) Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Second approach 2) Let's start, and then it will be seen what to do. First is a planning and second is an adaptability approaches. Rough estimation of effectivenes shown something around 70% for the planning. And 60% for the adaptability approach. How this close to the NASA research... just a random coincidence.
It's easy to make a misconception here, but seems like planning grants around 10% more success than just starting and doing anything relatable to the final result. It would be good if you could think fast like a quantum computer, but resources are limited, so please, ONLY something useful. No jokes. But the main reason, why planning is having disadvantages is that you're limiting yourself to some several options or even only one. Which can be a failure in 25% of times. But there're 60-75% of success in case of just starting the work. So spending too much time on planning is not efficient without any experimentation.
What's an "experimentation" in a motion design? Pretty simple question. The answer can be own for everyone. Someone can tell - wasting time on some random animations. Someone will tell that's Playing with designs, effects, 3d tools. Learning something new. I think the same way, it's better to play with motion design and have fun with the process rather than try to build a "clear plan" for any project. Until you tried it by yourself, it's impossible to plan something ahead. It should be in parallel. Doing-planning-optimizing-applying loop. But just increasing the scale of the project everytime.
What I can tell for sure that books are helping to calm down a little and sometimes to find the best option. Today it was with a Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton. It's part of luck, but I feel that controlling the stress is a skill that you can improve and later use to advance in various life situations. It's probably needed to make a habbit to direct the stress into the urgency of doing something immediately, without accumulating the levels of Cortisol. Here is what ChatGPT wrote
What is Cortisol in simpilified description so even 10 years old will understand?
Sure! Imagine your body as a team of workers, and cortisol is like the boss. It's a hormone (a special kind of messenger) that helps your body handle different situations, especially when you're feeling stressed or excited.
When you're in a tough situation, like a big test or a scary moment, cortisol tells your body to be ready for action. It boosts your energy and helps you focus, like a superhero getting ready to face a challenge. But, just like a boss who works overtime, too much cortisol for a long time can be a bit tiring for the body.
So, think of cortisol as the boss that helps you handle stress and stay alert, but it's important to give your body some rest too, so it doesn't get too tired.
As we can see, Cortisol is a Superhero, but only when you are well rested.
Assuming that motion designers aren't lazy people - most probably when something not works as intended, it can be due to low quality of rest and high level of cortisol.
By a high level I mean the level, when it's tooo much. And even simple sleep for one hour won't help for long. So probably it will be needed to tune up a little work-sleep routine. Check for more in my another post "How sleep affects work" (you can quickly find by a search).
As always - happy to read your opinions. Have a great MotionDay!
