Practice – tutoriale

If you look at pictures of desktops of top marketers (27 Pictures of Desks – Top Marketers Share Tips for Cameras, Mics, Lights and Hamsters | Orbit Media Studios), what you might notice is:

• A lot of people use laptops, as opposed to PCs / Macs. I don’t think that’s a good idea, and the first reason for this is that you need a monitor for a proper image and an external keyboard + mouse for proper input.
• Another reason? If you don’t use an external monitor or keyboard, your ergonomics at the office are likely poor.
• Laptops are more expensive than their desktop counterparts.
• Most laptops are also very limited in raw power when compared to desktops.
• More prone to breaking, harder to repair.
• Harder to upgrade.
• There’s a big advantage – mobility of laptops -, but most people in that list spend a lot of time at the PC. If I were them, I’d use a not-so-performant laptop for travelling, and a performant PC for home.

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#1 You can right-click a video on YouTube and select “Loop” so that the movie will play forever and ever.

#2 You can adjust the resolution of the video so that it consumes less bandwidth. Save the planet!

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One time, during my professional life, I encountered a person who used to reply very fast to most emails.

Not only this, but the person also used to solve tasks quickly.

Some tasks were solved less-than-perfect, but, boy-oh-boy! – Were they done quickly.

I tried to learn from this as much as possible.

I tend to reply rather quickly to most messages.

As said before, if you give a quick answer you help that person lose less of their time.

If you value their time as much as yours, you might want to try and work fast and reply to emails quickly.

At least, that’s what I try to do.

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There are some time-management solutions that claim this:

• Only answer your emails a few times a day.
• Don’t be constantly available for messaging.
• Don’t reply to phone calls at all times.
• … etc., you got the message.

Why do I consider the advice wrong?

The logic goes as follows: if you value your time on the same level as one of your partners of discussion, you should reply to messages ASAP.

If they lose time talking to you, and they are interrupted at moment X, if you reply to them 3 hours later, they’ll also be interrupted 3 hours later.

So, it makes sense – “I’ll interrupt what I do at the current moment, to help my business partner not lose time. Their time is as valuable as mine, if I postpone answering the email/message for 3 hours, then their time will be lost. I’ll sacrifice my time for the good of the overall partnership.”

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I once (in the autumn of 2001, at VIP) heard Șerban Alexandrescu (Headvertising) speak about leisure time within an advertising agency.

His affirmation (large approximation, here) was something in line with: if you run an advertising agency, you need to give your employees some spare time. If they work long hours, they don’t have the time for leisure, like watching plays, movies, going out, which will limit their ability for creativity.

This is so true. A lot of time, people focus on the working parts – “Oh, I’ll work so-and-so hours, I don’t need to read the news, watch some movies, listen to podcasts, listen to music, in other words – educate myself. No! All I need to do is work-work-work”.

There are two problems with that:

• First, unless you do really repetitive work, and you’re highly motivated, it’s very hard to work long hours in a day.
• Two, you won’t get inspiration. There are some really technical jobs right now (working with repetitive tasks, just doing the same things over and over again), but, generally, it should help if you can have some creativity in your job. And, in the future, I expect more and more of the repetitive jobs will be put aside, replaced by machines (digital or physical). So, I think it would be nice to know what happens around you.

How to get more creative? I think there are two solutions:

• Get more dots. Get more things to connect with. Expose yourself to various situations – see movies, read books, listen to things. Find out where information lurks, and get into the abyss.
• Connect the dots. Write some blog posts connecting ideas. Keep a journal, but don’t just mention “Today I did so-and-so”, but more into “Today I did this, which reminds me of, which also reminds me of, which I can relate to another situation”. This is rather hard – connecting the dots. It’s not hard to watch a movie, it’s hard to write an essay about ideas you got in the movies, and how does the movie fit the bigger picture (pun intended). It’s not that hard to read a book, but it’s rather hard to connect the ideas within it. Make it a habit, and it should become easier as time passes by.

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According to a study:

If you are on the receiving end, Legg says, experiments showed that an overwhelming majority—more than 75 percent—wanted the bad news first. “If people know they are going to get bad news, they would rather get it over with,” she says. Then, if there is good news to follow, “you end on a high note.”

Good News or Bad News: Which Do You Want First?

I generally focus on giving the bad news first. I’m happy that this is how people would actually expect it.

Why do this? It helps overcome fears. If someone has constantly in their head – “Oh, what will the bad news be?”, they might ignore the good news altogether.

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