There are excellent translated documents that truly transmit the essence and core ideas of a source document. They end up being valuable and interesting outputs for the target audiences, which is the ultimate goal of taking a document from a source into a target language. However, the truth is that behind even the best works and productions many times there are tons of pressure plus barriers that the linguists should know how to dodge and attend.

How to beat up the clock

1. First of all, the most important thing to do when facing procrastination or lack of inspiration phase and then having to face the harsh reality of a delayed project, also when a project arrives unexpectedly, the first thing to do is to create a practical scheme of the focal points of the work. For instance, a translator that has a 50,000-word project for tomorrow night proceeds to separate the translation, edition, and final proofreading phase and set a time for each one of the tasks.

It really doesn't matter what kind of app or organization software the professional prefers; it doesn't even matter if the person prefers to handwrite things, the idea is to design an organized master plan and set a specific time to each one of the activities. That surely will help to relieve the anxiety and feeling of uncertainty.

Moreover, a work scheme improves the energy rationalization on the most crucial steps, filtering the superfluous ones, which will make a huge difference in order to finish the project and deliver high-quality output.

2. Consider the use of automated apps without jeopardizing the quality of the human contribution. That includes Matecat, Xbench, TMS Editor, Google Translate, and DeepL for linguists, or Ubbersuggest, SEO Rank Tracker for marketers, for example.

The combination of human talent and apps is great but its overuse and dependence can seriously affect the quality of the material that will be delivered to the client. Remember, as uncle Ben said, with great power - in this case, a great app- comes great responsibility.

3. Just do it. As Kevin Systrom -Instagram's co-founder- stated, many times, the most difficult part is to start the project. To that issue, the idea is to do a 5-minute deal with your lazy side to start doing it. According to the ex CEO of the SM million users app, after 5 minutes the person will end up doing the whole responsibility.
4. Delegate tasks. Multitasking is hard and requires experience that can only be achieved by years of doing things under pressure with the best results and truly love learning to do new things. Nonetheless, multitasking is not for everyone. That is why, as a final tip, ghostwriters, freelance translators and outsourcing agencies can give a hand in the urgency process.