I’ve always been a “multitasker.” I can do a lot of things at once. It’s not that I can. It’s that I must.
Sometimes I’m on a conference call while I change the laundry. Sometimes I’m on a zoom while I’m calming down my puppy with a toy in my hand. Sometimes I’m in a meeting and I have to step out because my parents call (and I always pick up the phone when they call) but I don’t always tell them I’m in a meeting.
My husband once told me that multitasking isn’t a thing. That your brain can’t physically do more than one thing at a time. He’s a doctor, he knows things. And I get it…. it’s not logical that we can do more than one thing at once. It takes a LOT of brain power to do that thing where you pat your head and rub your belly. A lot.
But in marketing, you really MUST be able to do more than one thing at once.
I once worked with someone who would take – no joke – 20 minutes to take a photo, edit it and then publish it on Instagram. And this was about 10 years ago when editing tools weren’t that intricate… I mean, what on earth was she doing??? She couldn’t get anything else done during that time. And.. well.. time is money (and I am not referring to money we earn, I’m referring to money our clients spend). Our job is to be efficient on their behalf. And to think about the next post while we’re creating this post. And to take all parts of the marketing mix into account.
Multitasking may not mean doing two things at once, but as marketers, we have to split our brain into what we’re doing right now and what else needs to be done. Put it this way… if we are onsite capturing footage for a client, we can’t simply have on our to do list “I need this quick video for this one piece of content to publish next week.” Rather, while onsite, we need to think about what else needs to be captured and put into a library to be used – and then repurposed. How many pieces of content can we dream up, list out and shoot to be efficient for our clients? Related: how many changes of clothes does the client need to have on hand so it doesn’t appear to have all been shot on the same day?
We also need to think about each piece of content and how it can be repurposed. I talk about this a LOT – I encourage consulting clients to start with one piece of content (typically a video). Then we take that topic and turn it into a blogpost. Then we create quick videos for stories, a carousel of graphics with text, a photo with a related caption, and the list goes on. Multitasking and repurposing go together, because when we are creating one piece of content, we are thinking about what else can stem from it.
In our world, we also need to be thinking about multiple clients at once. We have different voices in our heads all day long, across industries, with different platforms and types of audiences.
No wonder we are exhausted by dinnertime.
And, of course, because of the way our company is structured, there is room to handle personal needs during the workday. In essence, we aren’t chained to a desk at an office building. BUT, it also means we have to juggle it all – kids, parents, dogs, dinner, laundry, people who need to fix things on our homes, car issues, insurance battles, Saturday night plans, working out, keeping our social life healthy, traveling… all of it. It’s all in our heads all at once.
And that, my friends, is necessary multitasking.
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