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Long hours vs quality creative
Submitted by ivan on Tue, 2006-05-16 00:27.
Working hours and work quality. I feel the closer I stay to the 8-9 hours of daily work schedule the better my creative output. I can do stuff that is fresh and do it quickly. If I stay late, nothing exceptional comes out of my office. And, the next day I'm struggling too. On the other hand, many big shoot creatives including Neil French recommend to put the hours in. I don't mind to put the hours in, but I feel it's counter productive in my case. Does it really take long hours to do great creative, or is it a matter of good planning and focus in your opinion?
Comments
Same for me too. Quality over quantity. 9 hrs is perfect.
Sathish Bhaskaran
Yeah, Quality is never measured by the amount of hours put in; be it in any job. Especially in the creative field, i feel the people who talk about quality work being produced by staying late are either not good planners or they are lazy during the first half of the day. It's also b'coz they would have stayed late the previous day which takes away the freshness from them in the morning. To me atleast, morning is the best time to do creative work.
main problem is with servecing (glorified postmen), they give you brief (if they give you) by evening and then starts the day at the end of the day.
me personally i don't have any problem with working more than 9 hours a day, still the concentration and motivation lacks the longer you try it. my tip: if you're really stuck on something, just let it rest for half an hour, maybe one. that gives your brain synapsis time to connect and everything's easy and smooth again. or, if you really have to work late, try to go out of the office. change of environment often helps - and a nice glass of wine might do the rest :)
sometimes my greatest ideas come out at 2am. Ive always been a night owl though. Im more productive at night then through the day
Neil failed to mention the 8 weeks of holiday time he used to break up those late nights.
This is a good question especially since some managers / business owners encourage long hours. Plus, the ad biz has historically required surge efforts to win new biz, lunch new campaigns.
My view as the manager of a creative departments - I don’t care how many or how few hours you put in, as long as you produce brilliant work and don’t inconvenience clients or colleagues.
Steve
> AdCracker - interactive tools to trigger ad ideas.
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