In PR, if you are fully billable; you often find yourself a little short on time. It seems that no matter what time I get to work, there just isn’t enough time in the day. Currently I work on six accounts and juggling is definitely a requirement. I was recently asked if I had a hard time keeping them straight, but luckily they are all pretty unique. From ROADMs to storage to laptops, throw in some anti-phishing, a dash of webware and some BPM (again with the abbreviations!) and you will start to understand a few of the things floating around my brain on a given day.

This means that when someone pings me, I have to figure out first which accounts we share and then which of the three they are referencing. At the same time I am exposed to a lot of activities and work with people from all different levels of the agency. I have built every type of list imaginable (I quickly learned to accept excel with open arms), can create briefing sheets in my sleep (as long as I have access to Cision), have become the queen of time management, and can google my way out of almost any situation.

And when it comes down to it, regardless of how many accounts I am on, after only being in PR four months, that’s pretty darn cool.

Agency Life, billable, BPM, Entry Level, phishing, Public Relations, ROADM, Webware

One of the most important skills you will learn starting out in PR is binding. Some may say it is a somewhat useless real world skill but when its crunch time; either you got it or you don’t. Simmons told me at her previous agency there was a whole department dedicated to the production of briefing books and client materials. While that seems a little excessive; in PR we are judged on all the materials that we produce. When you take a few minutes to format a document, double check materials for consistency or spell check an email before you send it; it can make the difference between a polished presentation or a sloppy one. And in the case of binding, that means always putting the back cover shiny side out.

Agency Life, binding, Entry Level, PR, Public Relations

Email organization sounds like a silly topic to blog about, but when it comes down to it, it is a very important concept. There are tons of guides out there, as well as here AND here with the rationale that we can’t be productive members of society if we can’t wade through the 150 emails we receive a day. What happens when you need “that document” and it is lost somewhere in the server abyss? Does that delightful ding and that transparent email alert window make you want to hurl something at your computer?

In order to get a better handle on my inbox; I read “Take Back Your Life: Using Microsoft Outlook to Get Organized and Stay Organized”. While the title seems a little dramatic (does fixing your email really impact your life in a serious way?!) I do have to say that it helped me prioritize quite a bit. And while I don’t use all the tips (I personally love my handwritten to do list, there is something so satisfying about crossing things off!), I recommend it anyone who is letting their email control their life. Again with the dramatics, I know.

Whatever happened to good old fashioned snail mail? Does anyone even remember the Inverted Jenny?

Effective Communication, email organization, inverted jenny, outlook, snail mail