sometimes work is really difficult. you spend hours upon hours of time dedicated to solving yours and your client’s challenges. but — every now and then — those issues don’t seem to want to go away, no matter how hard you try.

it might be a complicated spreadsheet, or a really demanding client, or a piece of programming that the person before you built without any documentation. every time you feel like you’ve won, it comes back at you — like a final boss battle in a video game — taunting you, keeping you from getting to what you really want to accomplish.

but the thing about boss battles is that there’s always some kind of a trick.

next time that devil of a task comes back at you: survive when you need to, push back when you can, and look for the weak spots. find the critical piece of your spreadsheet (hint: it’s probably obvious), understand your client’s tendencies and tricks (hint: it takes more listening and less talking), and don’t be afraid to hit the restart button on that piece of programming code (hint: starting from scratch isn’t always a waste of time).

find the weakness, then attack.just remember to hit the ‘a’ button.