What is Scope Creep?

You’ve wrapped up the final draft of your latest blog post. Ahhh! Success!

A few hours after you send it off, you get a message of appreciation in your inbox from your editor.

This is fabulous! Exactly what I was looking for! Since you did such a great job, and know this topic so well, would you mind writing a few quick, witty blurbs to use on social posts across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram?

Pleased with your efforts and buzzing from the positive feedback, you open a new screen and start typing away. The minutes are also ticking away. Unpaid minutes. Or, minutes that cause you to work late, yet again.

Before you know it, you look up and have spent the majority of an hour crafting the perfect social teasers, complete with researched hashtags that are performing well in the post’s niche.

Sure, you enjoyed the challenge and love to help out your client, but you’ve just fallen into the trap of scope creep.

What is Scope Creep in the Writing World?

In my experience, scope creep is when the hiring party in a contract-based agreement asks for additional work to be completed beyond the original agreed upon terms of the project — without additional compensation or additional time to meet a deadline.