Less (work) is more
Just been reading this interesting article about the amount of work we should do to be as effective as possible.
If you can’t be arsed to read it it says there’s a lot of research to suggest that the optimum amount of effort for ‘elite’ workers is no more than three 90-minute bursts a day with frequent breaks. We should also have naps and get more sleep overall (sleep deprivation cost the US over $63bn last year).
We’ve probably all read similar studies over the years and reacted in similar ways: I wish I could do that, but the way my job is set up, there’s no chance of it happening. Ad agencies seem to have been moving to the quantity over quality model in recent years, leaving many of us producing a volume of ideas during late nights and weekends only to have the vast majority hit the waste paper bin (clearly, the client is only going to make one ad/campaign). But quantity can be measured by anyone with eyes and an IQ over 70: just look at the number of pieces of paper with ‘ideas’ on them. Quality, however can only be measured by a few, and here’s the kicker: those people are not always right. That leaves us unsure and insecure. We can’t have one idea; it might be the wrong one or it might come out at the wrong time. Let’s have tonnes, and in the process of killing some we’ll feel better about the others that live, for they will have ‘superiority’ over the dead.
Is that a good way to go about the production of work? Possibly. It’s clear that in producing more you are never going to make your best ad worse, and the further exploration will often result in reaching areas you would not have discovered on the first go. But then there has to be a point where an idea is chosen and developed and the more time you spend looking for the initial idea the less time you can spend working on the all-important execution of that idea. I could say that an ad with horsey waves would be brilliant for Guinness, but that’s a million miles from what ended up on our screens.
So can you maximise your working day and still have a life? Of course you can. I think the idea of working in shorter bursts makes a lot of sense. The 20 minutes where the ideas just flow with ridiculous ease should be familiar to most of us, as should the hour and half where it’s like trying to squeeze Dr Pepper from a pigeon. So I’m very much of the school of thought where you should find the method that works best for you and do that, and that’s what I tell my department. After all, I just want the best work and I don’t care how it happens: arrive late, arrive early, work on your own, work with your sister… If the end result is good that’s all that matters, and staying all night to do it can often do more harm than good.
Having said that, it only applies to concepting. Sometimes the demands of execution (creating edits/storyboards/layouts etc.) require longer attendance and that’s just an unfortunate fact of how long it takes to actually make something really good. It’s a shame about the hours, but I find the energy of practical ‘doing’ pretty invigorating.
What are your methods? Is there a giant shadow of presenteeism hanging over your department? Do you stop at your first thought or explore until your eyes bleed? Feel free to comment and educate the rest of us…
I’m a director, i work in really short bursts, i like to bring something new to the idea and that isn’t always easy as therefore there is a lot of wasted thoughts. I also like to nap in the afternoon, so i tend to get up at 5am which is my most creative time and work through till 9ish then have a break till midday then another couple of hours work then nap, i rarely work in the evenings. I’m pretty good at what i do and it works for me, i can never understand why creatives aren’t given more freedom to create where and when the mood takes them..
i find working in short random bursts is best. otherwise it becomes work.
My bike ride to and from work always shapes any creative work in a really interesting way.
If it’s just writing, get in early, headphones on and try to get it done before the mid-afternoon slump.
I try to always have both some execution-y stuff and some concept-y stuff on the go at the same time.
I find switching between the two throughout the day keeps me fresh on both.
In this way I try and be as industrious as I can all day long.
Then, at around 6pm, I go home. I never work weekends unless I’m on a shoot and I am no more or less effective than when I used to work every hour god sent.
Refusing to work joke hours has meant I’ve had to have the occasional awkward conversation with colleagues, but rarely anything too unpleasant. I never seek to justify leaving on time with a bullshit excuse. I just work my arse off, then fuck off.
I worked for a CD once who would send out email meeting requests for midnight on the day we were given a pitch brief.
If you had an idea after lunch, it wouldn’t get passed him. If, however, you told him you had a flash of inspiration at three in the morning, the idea was automatically worth considering.
I lied and said the lunchtime ideas came at three.
So +1 for short bursts.
I like to work between 7 and 10 then a bit more after a brew and some interwebs.
Nothing of any note happens in the afternoon. That’s when I go and listen to suits and other pointless activities.
Don’t force your creatives to do anything, besides the work. All it has to be is good and on time, everything else (the format, the hour of day, etc) doesn’t matter.
Last agency I was at had two hour long “brainstorming” sessions. I’d rather drive nails through my balls than to suffer through one of those again.
@SteakAndCheese
Ah, the old ‘idea shower’.
@5. I think I must’ve worked for him: Never the best idea, always the last. There are too many of these twats around.
I worked at a big agency in soho that tried ‘brainstorming’ with a beardless juvenile from Hyper Island. After papering the walls with Post-Its (no doubt he has serious shares in the company), guess what? Yes, right first time. We had precisely fuck-all. The room was like an H-Block in the 70s.
He still walks with a limp, but is back on solid foods. The person who instigated this process got promoted.
Same as D1 up there, just in the early morning 8-10am and late evenings. In between is all doodling/surfing/eating/tv.
Never understood the reason to stay in the office, unless an edit is under a very very tight deadline and we’re about 6 rough cuts away from it. Then late nights are good.
Plus I get to be super busy when booked on a job. A few weeks of constant output/meeting/direction followed by ‘wasting’ time doing not much.
Name names you pussies.
I’m in the office from 8.00 till 6.30 most days. I go home and have a break for teatime/homework/bedtime with kids till about 8.30. Then do another couple hours of correspondence / writing decks, etc. I very rarely go in to the office at the weekend but usually do four or five hours work over Saturday / Sunday.
Of course, posting these words wasn’t exactly “work”. There’s probably an hour a day in there of faffing about online and on twitter.
Hmmm. You’ve hit an real area of interest for me here.
I absolutely hate this notion in advertising that you have to work long hours to be ‘keen’ or to be good.
It’s utter bullshit.
I think agency principles can and do set very bad examples for the middle management of big agencies and it leads to the horrible presenteeist, I-was-here-later-than-you, I-was-working-the-weekend attitude.
For fucks sake, if your boss can’t get his work done in a reasonable amount of time, he probably shouldn’t be your boss.
All I care about is great work done by the time it’s needed. Everything in between is free time. Work however you need to work to get the good stuff out.
This industry needs a proper fucking shake up.
I agree that ‘presentee-ism’ is pointless and that it’s all about the work. But I disagree that “if your boss can’t get his work done in a reasonable amount of time, he probably shouldn’t be your boss”. Probably the reason they are the boss is that they have done and will continue to do whatever it takes, however long it takes, by any means necessary, to make the place and the work as great as it possibly can be. That’s the attitude it takes to be any good at whatever you do. And it’s generally not an attitude that fits well with starting late and knocking off early. In fact, I’m not sure that the distinction between ‘work’ and ‘not work’ is a relevant one if you’re truly the boss. It’s what you do and you’re never not ‘working’.
No doubt someone will now prove me wrong by pointing out that Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Martin Sorrell, Richard Branson, Picasso, Mozart, Shakespeare, etc all work(ed) no more than four hours a day.
Neil, have you ever had to do an ad yourself? Or anything creative? Just asking, because the way you talk sure doesn’t make it sound like you ever have.
Steak and cheese – yes. How about you?
Ad man compares himself to Mozart. Much hilarity ensues.
Steakandcheese
Oof!
Post your best ad and put him in his place.
I don’t think Neil compared himself to Mozart.
Neil, maybe you took my ‘boss’ personally – that wasn’t the intention. What we most certainly agree on is that for people striving to achieve great things ‘work’ isn’t work, it’s just what you do. For good people, the cogs are always turning. But for that very reason, I also think phrases like “starting late” and “knocking off early” are unhelpful. They’re pejorative terms, they imply some value is added by simple being present in the office, which, after all, is the root of presentee-ism. It’s not good for peoples’ understanding of what is really valuable in the business. I’d take one person who “starts late” or “knocks off early” if they deliver great stuff, over ten desk-jockeys who do nothing but use up valuable oxygen whilst producing bobbins.
What matters most is the value people add, not the time at which they add it, or the place they happened to be when they thought of it.
‘Late’ and ‘early’ are bullshit.
10:30 and 3:45 are facts.
Mozart? That shiftless slacker? Give me a break! When did he ever write an ad or do anything creative?
No Neil, I haven’t written decks or correspondence on a Sunday afternoon, ever.
Here’s the thing though. When you say “make the […] work as great as it possibly can be”, what I hear is “putting as much lipstick on the pig as we can to hide the fact it’s still a pig”. I’m not implying that that’s what you do, but I’ve worked at enough agencies where that’s the case.
You can never make an idea “better”. You can have another idea off of that idea, which is better. Or you can improve the execution. But you can’t take a shit idea and make it great by having Tom Kuntz direct it.
And it’s never people trying to come up with ideas at 10pm in the office. It’s always the art directors and graphic designers picking out images on Getty. The idea always seemed to be some afterthought when the media was already bought and paid for. Or the director. Or the Facebook page. You get the point.
I think presenteeism started when agencies switched their business model from percentage of media budget spent to time sheets. The more hours we can bill the client, the better. Which is why agencies don’t try to present the very best idea and sell it from the start. They’re happy to make the gajillion changes the client wants. They’ll come up with more cannon fodder ideas, which are meant to be shot down by the client.
/end of rant
I think we all agree:
– there are some shit companies and some shit bosses.
– working longer hours doesn’t necessarily make your contribution more valuable, particularly in a creative business where quality of output matters more than quantity of hours spent.
– In the words of SellSell “for people striving to achieve great things ‘work’ isn’t work, it’s just what you do”.
If you don’t respect your boss, if you don’t love where you work, if you don’t love what you do – change it.
I’m a creative on placement doing the rounds. We were always taught that we should be in before the CD and leave after them.
I understand that when you are on placement you have to work the hardest in the agency but I also got frustrated at staying late for the sake of it. It often left me jaded and tired instead of carefree and happy (when the best ideas happen).
It’s particularly dangerous when there are 2 placement teams at one place as the result is a weird game of presentee-ism chicken.
It’s not for long.
Soon you’ll get a job and you can do all that for real.