5 Ways editing skills transfer to real life

Does editing increase the likelihood that you’re an incredible human? Yes. Obvi.

Okay, maybe that's just what I want to hear, so I went out looking for some examples to confirm my bias.

Here are a few skills you develop as an editor that transfer into real-life benefits. 

PROBLEM-SOLVING

It's the name of the game in editing, but it's also the name of the game in life. Humans are problem-solving machines, but so many folks don't use their robust noodles to navigate the difficulties they face. We face challenges and need to sort through, arrange and ultimately rearrange the building blocks of our lives. Not us editors though, we're solving problems all day, every day, priming our brain tanks to solve life's conundrums.

DEEP WORK

Editing is NOT a shallow workers domain. It's about going deep and fully immersing yourself in the project you're working on. Our profession is not for the faint of heart and the flighty of mind - editing is a task that requires prolonged focus and dedication. Everybody needs to be better at focusing on the task at hand in an increasingly distracted world. 

PATIENCE

Ohhh, baby. Patience. If you ain't got this in spades, then you ain't going to make it in the editing biz kid, I'm sorry to tell ya. There are no shortcuts to the intricate work of an editor: sitting with the material, working and re-working it until it's where you want it to be. You can't rush imperfection - if such a thing exists. 

IMPERFECTION

Deadlines are our most reliable friend, always rocking up on time, exactly when they said they would but with you secretly hoping they'd forget, or be fashionably late at least. And that means at some point (usually way before you'd like it), you've got to call it.

There's still imperfect bits, there are still rough edges, there's still clunky patches, but the train is leaving. The client has got to go live. The video has to go to mix. And so, we get used to getting close to perfection, catching glimmers of it, and we eventually get comfortable (because we have to) in that almost perfect space.

ITERATIONS

Editing, by definition, is a work in progress. It's not complete, and we never quite get there, as the last point ↑↑↑ was trying to highlight. 

And you know what else is a constant work in progress? You'd be correct if you answered the Sagrada Família, but the simple answer I was looking for was life.

Knowing that everybody and everything has a ways to go, we can be softer with people and things that aren't fully figured out and are a bit clunky.

We get it - you'll get there eventually.