Northern Planner

The rage against the fading of the light and embracing average

If you read this blog more than once a year you're probably sick of me telling you I used to be swimmer and cycle a lot.

When I was a teenager being an athlete used to define me, maybe too much  if I'm honest.

But when I swam I felt powerful and capable, I felt special.

When I cycled in latter years, I could put the power the down to feel anything but average.

I never lost the addiction of the deep joy of doing something well.

It's why I love planning, though I may be well below the best in the business.

Because few can really do this job even well, and some have said I can do that at least.

Planners can make magic come out of the seemingly mundane, it's alchemy really.

To me the rush is at intense as a runner's (swimmer's) high - the feeling of pure joy also known as flow.

 

But when it comes to sport.

I'm not young anymore and for the first time, I can feel my body slowing down.

The times I used to do are further out of reach.

My shoulders ache more after a swim.

Hills feel steeper. 

And I hate it.

 

It's tempting to deny it and just push harder, but that's putting off the inevitable.

And making myself ill. 

 

Raging against the fading of the light doesn't alter the fact my body is older.

And it's part of a deeper problem.

I'm not special and neither are you.

No matter what the task or skill and most people believe they better than most.

Even though, by definition, most people are not the best- they are average. 

 

And once you accept you are not special at what you do, or because of what you do.

You're liberated to simply enjoy it.

So I'm learning to be more present in just enjoying doing sport.

Rather than competing against others, or myself.

In the job, I'm beginning to love doing it, not worrying what peers think.

Learning to take the pressure off.

And oddly, when you're less tense about doing your best work.

The best work comes.

Who knew? 

 

Adland as a whole could remember this too.

Because we're paid to connect brands with real people.

To make them popular and sell.

Yet 'selling things' gives many the ice.

Work most people enjoy feels like 'dumbing down' to many.

People are not stupid, but they can't be arses to work out what point you're trying to make.

So take the pressure off and enjoy making your clients popular. 

Loosen your grip and see what happens. 

Ask a silly question....

The worst thing you can do in research is ask people about your brand or product.

Because they really don't think or talk about it in real life.

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.

 

Just as when people can, and do, pay to avoid advertising.

Asking them to talk about it in research, is like asking them to define irony.

 

It's not new to say people don't care about brands, they care about life.

But how many of us really set out to research real life?

How many really care?

To make stuff people will actually thank you for making?

 

I saw a funny LinkedIn post about banned insights.

Like 'young people have it tough'.

Yet how many brands have you seen actually helping with this?

 

I LOVE this Travelodge campaign.

 

It deals with the obvious.

Staying in a low cost hotel is still a lot better than the alternatives.

Maybe boring is still better than chaos.

I bet it works because it remembers to actually sell, remember that?

And it gets to the heart of actual real life.

Oh, and I imagine it deals with a commercial problem.

A dip in bookings as people save money - then bitterly regret the consequences. 

 

Obvious insights are amazing to use when adland is too cool to use them. 

When you understand what is really going on, how you could fit in.

The possibilities are endless.

Even so called low interest categories become interesting.

 

The drumbeat of everyday conversations at a very surface level are full of tension right now.

Cost of living, tensions around the world, paying for heating now it's cold. 

These things sound obvious, but how is your brand really relevant to obvious real life?

You could make coffee a way to make tough days more bearable. 

You could make a chat over coffee a way for lonely men over 45 (a genuine real world problem) to make friends.

You could make cleaning the house a way to feel able in world that makes us feel powerless

 

When Daniel Craig became James Bond.

They realised men were a bit confused about their place in the world.

So made him a flawed confused character to reflect the world around him.

 

It shouldn't be a conversation about injecting humour into ads.

I heard a real client conversation about humour being a bit crass in serious times.

When a human being knows in serious times, we all look for ways to cheer ourselves up.

Trust me, parts of the 80s were miserable in the UK.

Unemployment, strikes and, well, Thatcher.

Did everyone stop watching Only Fools and Horses because real life wasn't funny for many?

Don't be a plonker Rodney. 

 

Final point.

Campaign Magazine is out.

With 10 key questions.

All the usual naval gazing stuff.

Do brands mean anything any more?

What do we do about AI?

Obviously, like a great white shark, we need move forward or die.

But the real question is relevance to the only folks that matters, real people who decide to buy things or not.

If can't remember to be relevant to them, we're fish food. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you can't be good all of the time, be great some of the time

The biggest challenge with being a planning/strategy type is that everyone things they can do your job. 

But like many things, it's easy until you actually have to do it.

Let's be honest actually, it's not that hard to be an okay planner these days.

Since many places prefer a process being ticked, rather than brilliantly simple, informed ideas that change things.  

Being a great planner though, that takes great writing, sharp thinking and ideas. 

That is not easy, yet most of our workplace makes it harder.

 

Because doing your best work required you to be at your best.

Yet the actual work is often squeezed in between all the other stuff. 

Status meetings, check in meetings, lots of meetings, meetings about meetings. 

It's often the case you finally do deep work when you're tired out.

Come on.

How can you do your best work when you're brain dead from overlong status call? 

 

The very structure of the working day gets in the way.

Most people are far better in mornings than afternoons.

To the point where the difference in mental performance is as stark as being drunk or sober. 

Yet who gets to escape the Monday morning start the week meetings?

 

To be more precise, hard concentration is much better done in mornings.

But flashes of insight and out of the box ideas are better in the afternoon.

Because the rational brain is too tired to fight the absurd.

 

So in organisations that are supposed to deliver great thinking and fresh ideas.

Isn't it absurd how the working day is shaped to get in the way of the very thing that makes us money?

 

But then there is you.

The brain is a muscle.

When you require other muscles to work, you warm them up.

You leave the usual environments for places like gyms.

You pay over the odds for bits of polyester and plastic called 'kit'.

Cycling men even shave their legs to feel ready for battle.

 

Yet we sit in the same desks to deep work as we do for timesheets.

We click off emails and get straight into it.

The best work takes all we've got.

Yet we tie our own hands behind our backs.

 

We need to change WHEN we work.

We need to change HOW we work. 

But let's be honest, even though they should, most places will not abandon the current situation.

Here's what I do. I hack the system, I hack myself. 

I have to, I'm not naturally very good at this job, I have to work harder at it.

But even if you're naturally brilliant, imagine how much better you could be if you have yourself the chance? 

1. Have a morning routine. I get outside for at least 10 minutes (at least), HiiT exercise for at least 7 minutes, 10 minutes meditation (or just Wim How breathing techniques). All before I start work -and yes, I have children, I just get up earlier. All this gets me warmed up and energised to work well. If you commute, make sure you power walk for some of it, medicate on the train, don't doom scroll. 
2. Consider fasting in mornings, it clears brain fog (coffee reduces appetite).
3. Start work at least an hour before everyone else, in many cases, even earlier. Do the hard jobs that matter first.
4. Do everything you can to avoid morning meetings, put one and two hour blocks in my diary for proper hard work.
5. Work 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off. Little breaks, maximum effort.
6. Block social media, internet and most phone stuff in mornings so my brain is doing one things and getting into flow state.
7. Power nap around lunchtime just 20 minutes, then espresso and 5 minutes exercise -which mitigates a lot of afternoon crapness (naps in an office are tough culturally, a walk is not)
8. But I will have left most admin and low level tasks for afternoons, most meetings will be happening now if I have anything to do with it.
9. If I'm remote working, which I get to do a lot, I'll do an hour's hard exercise - mostly cycling. I have the time because I haven't wasted time. 
10. Then I'll try and re-look at projects when I've done lots of hard work already, but it's just not there yet -  the subconscious will have done lots of work for me, now I let it come out while I'm too tired to fight it. Get it all out, leave the tough work to turn it into gold for later.
11. I'll get a second wind late afternoon, early evening. I have kids, I have a life, but I often have another run at things.
12. I have thinking place and a doing place - just like the act of putting on Nike's to run, I'll sit in a thinking chair - and in an open plan office, switch seats to think rather than do. It's obvious, but it works, just as Bruce Wayne puts on the Batsuit yet doesn't gain any actual superpowers.

Much of this works for me because I'm me, other things will work better for you, but most is based on real science on what works for most people.

It doesn't require more time, just smarter use of it.

It's easy because it's building habits, and habits are what gets us through most days, we just need good ones.

Two final thoughts:

We all use QWERTY keypads. They were designed for old style typewriters to slow people DOWN so the mechanical action wouldn't jam. But we still use it simply because we always have. The 9-5 routine, a rough splodge of activity is like that. But you can hack the system and hack youself. 

It's amazing how much time you have, and how good you are,  when you put your phone away.