This is finished when [person] can [action], using [deliverable], and we have checked [condition].
For a contact form, the check is whether the inquiry reaches the right inbox. For a brochure, whether the approved content survived the final export.
Creative Hourly / The Backlog Audit
Ten items.
Ten items.
Three piles.
The list that keeps landing back on your desk is usually three different lists wearing one coat: work worth doing, decisions nobody has made, and ideas that stopped mattering. This one page separates them, puts a finishable sentence on each, and gives you an honest hours guess. It takes about twenty minutes.
Download the printable PDF Get the ebook: twelve notes
The ebook is the same thinking in twelve short notes, each with something you can do today. Free, no form.
01 / Do, Decide or Drop
Write down ten things.
Write down ten things.
Then label each one.
Take the first ten items that come to mind. Not the biggest, not the oldest, the first ten. Then give each one a label.
-
Do
The inputs exist and the result is clear. A page update with approved copy. A broken form. A deck that needs its numbers refreshed. These can start today.
-
Decide
Someone has to choose before anyone can start. A rebrand with no agreed audience. A product page with no price. More production time will not fix these. A decision will.
-
Drop
Last season’s promotion. The idea that felt urgent in March. If nobody would notice it never happened, let it go and take it off the list.
Do not commission execution to avoid a decision only you can make.
02 / The finishable sentence
Every Do item
The sentence
Decide items
Every Do item
gets one sentence.
“Fix the website” hides a dozen decisions. “Replace the outdated service descriptions on these three pages and check them on mobile” gives someone a boundary. Use this shape for each Do item:
Write the missing input as one question.
“Which three services go on the home page?” beats “sort out the home page.” Put the name of the person who can answer it next to the question.
03 / An honest hours guess
Put a number
Put a number
beside each Do.
You do not need to be right. You need to be in the range. These are the ranges we see most weeks, at $50 an hour.
Under 1 hourA wrong phone number. A dead link. A price change. A social graphic from an existing template. One product added to a store.
1 to 3 hoursA page rewritten and checked on mobile. A one page flyer designed and print ready. A deck refreshed. A landing page from copy you already have. A form rebuilt and tested.
3 to 8 hoursA short video edited with captions. A five page site cleaned up end to end. A catalog section laid out. A workflow automated and documented.
Anything you cannot place in a range is probably a Decide item in disguise.
04 / The sheet
Fill it in.
Fill it in.
Add it up.
| # | Item | Do / Decide / Drop | Finished when… (or the missing question) | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||
| 2 | ||||
| 3 | ||||
| 4 | ||||
| 5 | ||||
| 6 | ||||
| 7 | ||||
| 8 | ||||
| 9 | ||||
| 10 | ||||
| Do items total | Decide questions to send today | hrs |
Most lists come out between three and ten hours of actual work, plus two or three decisions that were never going to be solved by more effort.
Under three hours of Do?
That is one block.
Three hours is $150, paid once, never renews. Send us the sheet and we start on the Do column today. If it is longer than that, send us the list and we tell you honestly which block fits before you pay anything. If the first block is not right, the unused hours come back.
Buy 3 hours, $150
Free worksheet
The Backlog Audit.
The Backlog Audit.
One page. Ten items. Three piles.
Sort what you keep putting off into Do, Decide and Drop, write the sentence that makes each one finishable, and put an honest hours guess beside it. Most people find the whole list is smaller than it felt.