Calling It Finished

Editing

We all want our writing to be more than good. We want it perfect. While this is great for artists who don't have deadlines, it's poor project management. Spending weeks on a document just to decide whether a chapter should be called "Using the Widget" or "Widget Uses" is a waste of time and company money. I have seen editors struggle to find just the right word for a certain situation while missing the fact that the document really didn't describe the product. In one instance, someone spent nearly three weeks to edit a four page document. It wasn't from lack of effort. He put a lot of work into making it perfect. That effort threw off the entire production cycle though. We missed the printer's deadline and had to reschedule a month later. That, in turn, threw off the release of the product.

How do you avoid this mistake? Plan ahead and be consistent. Establish editing guidelines as part of your document design. Include the types of issues the editor should look for and maybe even establish time-frames for the editors to follow.