In my mid-20’s, as a full-time agency Planner, I thought I had my career all figured out – next stops Senior Planner (check), Head of Planning (check), then onto the Board. That last jump never happened. It turns out that it’s quite hard to juggle working 50 hours a week with caring responsibilities and also … Continue reading My aim: to do good work for nice people
Work/life balance is very important to me – I'm a part-timer for various reasons, but I also definitely do better strategic work when I’m more rested, less stressed and generally feeling in control of my life. Almost anyone who has worked in a decent sized agency will have experienced emails on Sundays, late nights at … Continue reading We have to get better at work/life balance – and pitches aren’t helping
1) We’re in the business of communication and persuasion, not putting-cool-stuff-on-screens (be they tv, pc or mobile). Making sure that the right message reaches the right people is what matters. Deciding which media is right for the job is vital – but the answer might just as easily be ‘supermarket car park experiential sampling’ as … Continue reading ten things everyone under 25 who works in agencies needs to know
There seems to be a movement in the marketing community towards better work-life balance. Whether it’s Chime’s Amelia Torode championing flexible and part-time working for Mums or what seems to be a massive increase in senior staff switching to freelance, it feels like the traditional 10+ hours, 5+ days a week agency model is under … Continue reading on allowing good people to work where and when they work best
I’ve been reading a lot about work-life balance recently, including this piece in Campaign (paywall, sorry) by Gail Gallie of Fallon London advocating a better deal for working mums in the ad industry and this enormous essay in Atlantic Magazine by Anne-Marie Slaughter (the former director of policy planning at the US State Department) about … Continue reading all of AdLand needs better work/life balance – not just working mums
Northern Planner posted today about work-life conflict. Can you be brilliant and awesome at something work-related while still having an actual life outside work? As he reasons in his post, ‘you can't do interesting work if you don't do interesting things’ (which to me is the whole point of the Interesting Un-Conferences). A high profile … Continue reading Are you playing the game without knowing what the prize is?
Since I got into this whole working-for-myself lark, the line between work and leisure has got rather blurred. I now have the flexibility to, say, take Friday off to go and watch a horse show, then catch up with my invoicing on Saturday evening. The thing that worries me is that when I send out … Continue reading Does your work life have an OFF switch?
I just read a great post from Drew McLellan on the blurring of boundaries between our home and work lives. Its not exactly a hot new trend, but an incredibly important one. To my mind, its not just that our personal lives are being invaded by work - in return our working lives are having … Continue reading blurring boundaries
