Alas, proactivity has never been one of my strong suits (even as I type this blog, it’s at the eleventh hour). Scientists may argue that its nature versus nurture but in my case, it’s definitely because my parents were procrastinating too much on teaching my brothers and I not to procrastinate.

My preclusion to avoid little, preemptive tasks here and there when I was younger always snowballed into last minute stress, late-night study sessions and pushing deadlines to the breaking point. Knowing this, you may ask yourself, “How does this woman make it a day, let alone three plus years in the highly competitive, ‘answers now!’ advertising arena?” Believe me, sometimes I wonder the same thing.

Since there is not a 12-step program for us habitual avoiders to “unlearn” our procrastination issues, as all our potential sponsors are putting off booking a lecture room at the local Y, I’ve learned that facing your postponement demons head-on is the best and only way to keep them a bay.

The first step in my recovery came when I was hired at PlattForm right out of procrastination-prone college life. PlattForm asks every person in every department to answer client’s questions even before they ask them. This does not mean giving the client an all-you-can-eat buffet of meaningless information that they’ll never use. It means that we as marketers need to be dedicated and committed enough to learn our market’s/client’s needs inside out. This way, when a useful bit of information or a new lead opportunity pops up, we can deliver that information quickly, concisely and complete with all courses of action recommended.

Another step on my way to procrastination recovery is realizing that the harder we work, the better our work will be. In the Media department, it pays to study lead flow and continuously report our results. “If you see something, say something” is a motto that’s key to life at PlattForm. For example, if you see lead flow for a certain market tank over a few days, taking the time to study the causes on the front-end before things get even worse will only make your job easier on the back-end. No one, especially clients, like to hear that a market is struggling - but if we’re doing our job correctly, you won’t have to wait too long for things to improve if you’re taking time on the front-end to fix the problem.

I’ve learned that bad news is unavoidable in the advertising world. No matter how hard and efficiently you work to prevent all problems, something will and does pop-up. However, striving to proactively avoid problems is always the best course to take. Over the years, PlattForm has made our clients raving fans of our work, which goes to show how much we all care about doing all we can to complete the job right the first time – and early enough to avoid late-night email chains.

Proactivity is still something I have to work on every day, knowing that in the long run, if I continue to work on tasks ahead of time, I’ll be a less harried person. The good news is that working at PlattForm has put me light years ahead of where I was a few short years ago. Maybe someday I’ll be completely cured, but seriously, what’s the rush? I’ve got at least a few more years before I have to start on that, right? Right?