I know it’s Friday, so a Casual Friday post would be the norm (I use that term loosely since I’ve been sadly negligent in posting), but because I haven’t posted something more serious and PR-related in a while, I figured I was due. So. Now that we have that cleared up, let’s move on, shall we? What I want to write about is time management. In the PR agency world, we are constantly working on more than one client at once. It’s a tricky thing. I imagine that time management is as much as an issue in the corporate world, but in a very different way. There, you might be working on several projects at once, but you only have one person to answer to when things aren’t done properly- your boss. Here in the agency world, things are not so simple. You have to constantly manage each client, plus your colleagues, plus your boss.

It’s easy to get swept up in one client, especially if you’re working on several projects for them simultaneously. Then you suddenly realize that while that client is happy and taken care of, you’ve neglected at least one of your other clients. It’s a constant game of catch-up and balance. It took me a little while to adjust to this, to be able to say “no” to colleagues if I just don’t have the time to help them out, as much as I’d like to. I found out what other people did to manage time - some people found booking time for each client in Outlook worked wonders for them. When that hour or two was up, they’d move onto the next client/project. That didn’t work for me. As a junior, I don’t have the kind of control over where my day is going. The post-it notes that worked for me in University didn’t work either. I used to put everything I needed to do on each post-it and stick it to my monitor. When it was done, it got thrown out. But some things need to get done every day so I was spending too much time making post-it notes and not having the satisfaction of throwing them out and seeing fewer on my monitor. So that was not a option.

What did end up working is something very simple. I make lists. One of the first things I do every morning, once I have my hot beverage of choice (tea in the winter, coffee in the summer…don’t ask) I sit down with my book and write down each client and what I have on the go. Some things don’t necessarily need to get done, but I write them down to remind myself that they exist, should I have the time. Things that MUST get done that day are flagged. I love the satisfaction of crossing tasks off, but I don’t worry about that fact that I can never cross everything off. A successful and productive day is one where the flagges items, daily items (such as media monitoring) and one or two other things are complete. What isn’t gets put on the list the next day. It’s simple, but it works for me.

Another aspect of my time management is how I divide the day. I’m an afternoon person and a night owl. I use the morning to take care of the little things, like media monitoring, admin stuff, blogging, emails and phone calls. That way, I free up my afternoon for the heavy lifting. The writing is done in the afternoon, as is anything that requires more focus and attention.

So, that’s me. What works for you? How do you make all your clients are getting the attention they deserve and everything gets done?