It is about that time these days isn’t it? You wake up and your day is arranged according to time and place. I’ve got to be here at this time and over there in a meeting by this time. What about time makes time so awesome? In my opinion, time is a limit or restriction, which forces an individual to meet the targeted time as pre-set within the individuals’ schedule or agenda. Time makes or breaks an individual’s ability as well as attitude. When a person can maintain a schedule adequately, that person feels good about themselves, leaving them with a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day…Lord knows we do not always have the privilege of time on our side.

That same schedule that restricts the length of time each activity or project will take, can work against an individual as well as their attitude. When one task on your agenda slips slightly over the restricted or pre-set time, and appropriate time management was not considered in the development of the schedule or unscheduled events occur, we run into the time chase! Time management is something our advertising company does extremely well. Time management is one of the crucial and and most expensive functions of a company’s success or failure. This is one of the main reasons advertising agencies have difficulty competing with DDA. Everything that is requested of our advertising services from conference calls to in-house meetings are all planned ahead to the proverbial “T”. 

Most advertising companies are overly conscientious about time management and being cost-effective. They run into problems because they over spend, and under deliver. More often then not, these companies make too many adjustments instead of letting their skilled web graphics designers use their talents as they were hired to do! Not letting talented individuals do what they do best is like asking an elephant to be deaf! It will not happen and the whole project will be adjusted to the point where the manager or supervisor of the project should have just performed the work themselves…sometimes you just got to let the skilled do their own thing, and provide them with the specs up front as opposed to during the work, which at this point begins to diminish the cost-effectiveness of the projects. This is one of the reasons that advertising companies tend to do lay-offs within the economy’s ups and downs…they are unable to maintain some level or average ground where productivity and cost-effectiveness meet. Therefore, the talent, money, and time are all wasted instead of nourished and it is always going to be about that time.

Rainy Tuesday, hard to think spring even with the cherry daffodils announcing loudly. Would rather be in my PJs,  grab a good book, a bunch of catalogs and curl up with a steaming cup of hot chocolate…but work I must, and hot chocolate DDA provides (with and without sugar), so no excuses this Tuesday.

I have adopted the expression “Killing two birds with one stone” to mean it is okay to do two or three things simultaneously, as long as only one task requires laser like focus. So while I enjoy my hot chocolate, I am writing in my blog,  and on the phone (on hold) straightening out an HR problem. Grouping tasks like this helps me make the most of my time.

And speaking of time creeping uselessly, I’ve learned that reading email and responding where necessary is more effective if you do it in chunks, like three or four times a day–instead of checking every five minutes which is in of itself distracting.

Next big chunk is AR/AP work. Thank goodness while the media shouts recession we are reasonably busy and the majority of our great clients honor our payment terms. And as a full service advertising agency, we constantly strive to give these clients the highest quality work–what I like to call win-win.Must move on to the next time chunk.

Enjoy the rain, all!       

Time is a created thing To say ‘ I don’t have time is like saying ‘ I don’t want to.’   Lao Tzu

At Dynamic Digital Advertising, we work a ten hour four day week, year round. In the almost 14 years I have been part of this company, I have learned to appreciate staff members who instinctively value time and use it judiciously. It can be magical to watch their work rhythms, and very reassuring to know that such effectiveness is possible in the very complex advertising world that is DDA.

Here, rule #1 is respect for the client’s budget and by extension their time. We have a great group of designers, videographers, animators, writers, seo specialists and programmers, but obviously some of us are better at identifying what must get done first, and what can wait in any given timeframe. Truth be told. googling, checking personal email, lingering over breakfast or comparing notes on last night’s hot show is more fun than buckling down for the day.

Which brings me to my request. Everybody send me a short list of time wasters (that applies to all of us) and let’s see how we can become an even better well-oiled machine that knows the true difference between urgent, truly important, do later and wasting time.  To avoid spending part of our three day weekend fielding problems, we have to understand that time is NOT elastic. There are only 38 desk hours a week that we have to get a myriad of technical, creative, mundane, demanding, frustrating sometimes exciting work done for our clients. Let’s commit to working hard and smart, so we can play joyfully the three days we call our weekend. Let’s do what President Kennedy said “Use time as a tool.” Remember however that in 2008 time can be exceedingly unwieldy.

TENNIS ANYONE? The club is right next door!