PR: Sometimes it stands for Plate Rotation

A few times in the last couple of months graduates looking to get into or starting in PR have asked me what is the best bit of advice I could give them. There are few better analogies for PR agency life then plate spinning. Though both fun and challenging, something I learned on my first week at work was that these plates can stack up quickly, so practicing good time management is an essential skill. But as is the nature of PR, there will come days when your to-do list resembles a 19th century stock ticker tape. And there will be days where you are needed for a super urgent task, meaning that you risk not being able complete other very urgent tasks. So, how can you stop your schedule resembling a real-life circus show? Here are some top tips:

• Getting a head start – at the start of each week, we make detailed workplans where we prioritise items, note down deadlines and share them with each other. Doing all this may seem either excessive or somewhat obvious, but in PR, the quality of your gameplan can make or break your working week. A good plan will help you and others prioritise to maximum effect, enabling you to complete all known tasks and making sure you have time to accommodate the unexpected.
• Communication is key – all too often, unexpected tasks pop up for one client unbeknownst to another client team. When faced with roadblocks, it is important to make other teams aware of issues, such as potential problems with meeting deadlines. Sitting on your hands hoping for them to miraculously disappear is never a good idea as they won’t. Instead, speaking up will ensure that teams can react quickly to the problem and avoid further, more serious ones down the line. It will also help you avoid any late and lonely office nights.
• Teamwork – successful PR involves working closely as a team. One of the most valuable and efficient resources I have is the team around me; in fact, at Spark we often get together as a group to brainstorm new ideas and campaigns. The team are all expert within their own particular niches (apart from Dom, who knows everything), so asking for help will not just save you time and help with your workload, but will also help you grasp subjects faster as well as open your mind to new ways of thinking. In fact, it was Michelle who suggested the theme for this blog post! Of course, such help doesn’t purely have to be work related; I frequently run my choices of bars and restaurants past our very own social critic, Leila. We all have a common goal to meet and it is best achieved by working together.

Overall, managing your time is about finding a method that works for you and sticking to it, but these three approaches above should provide a good starting point. There will of course, always be another plate to keep spinning, but communicating with your team and planning effectively will help to avoid any Greek-wedding-party-style plate smashing disasters.

 (Image: By אנדר-ויק (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), via Wikimedia Common)