“On the Jazz” was a term I first heard barked from the lips of Sergeant First Class B.A. Baracus, of The A-team.  It is a phrase in reference to the extreme adrenaline rush usually brought on by the team’s misadventures.

I’m always “On the Jazz” in the early stages of a project, when I code the first HTML/CSS shells.  It’s fresh, empty, and full of possibilities to perfect my craft.  However, sooner or later I find myself drowning in an inbox overstuffed with content edits and client changes.  The mundane cycle of “Revision and Approval” can run any developer’s patience thin, causing the loss of excitement needed to finnish a project on a good note.

Here’s some quick tips to help keep your sprits high, and stay “On the Jazz” through difficult times of extended projects.

1) There is No Failure, Only Feedback
This is a popular NLP idea that helps maintain perspective, even when things don’t go as planned.  Basically if something goes wrong in a project, first find out what exactly went wrong and why.  Next, instead of looking at that mistake negatively, think of it as feedback you received on just how NOT to do something.  Weeding out all the ways of doing a task incorrectly is just another way of sharpening your ability to complete the task correctly.

Thomas Edison didn’t fail 10,000 times on creating the lightbulb, he first found 9,999 ways to NOT create the lightbulb.

2) Remember (or Realign) Your Motivation
Most likely you are working on this project  in exchange for money.  It’s your job and that means someone eventually is your boss.  Whether you sit at a cubical under the whip of an overpaid, undereducated “supervisor” or you work for yourself as a freelancer, it all boils down to a client being happy and paying you.  The client is, more often than not at the end of the line, your boss.

But, that doesn’t mean you have to do this project 100% for the money, or a boss’s good favor.  If you enjoy the work you are doing, then complete the project for your own happiness.  It brings me joy at several different levels when a project comes to a strong finnish, the most important being my own personal pride and sense of accomplishment.

3) Time Out
Sometimes, you just hit a wall and aren’t able to summon the motivation to continue.  When this happens, relax (literally).

It’s time to take a deep breath and get away for a few minutes.  Work on a different project, take a walk, draw a treasure map, or even talk to a coworker for five minutes about something else, anything else.  Whatever you can do to allow your mind to rest and stop over-cranking the same gears.

I’m still surprised when I get away and quickly come back to a project with a solution or new idea I’m excited to implement.