Do what you love, love what you do. But what if your favourite tasks become repetitive and boring? Creative people, especially marketers and advertising professionals are always on the lookout for doing something new and exciting. Retainer work of existing clients may bring a sense of boredom and monotony as it requires consistency and meticulous attention along with a creative bent of mind. Here’s how you can tackle boredom while doing something that you love:

• Brainstorm new content ideas: By teaming up with another Account Manager and thinking of new content buckets for a brand that you do not work on, you make your brain exercise and unleash its creative potential.
• Keep email templates ready: Sending mails for multiple purposes is a key (and mundane) task at every ad agency. Keep textual templates ready in a Word/Google Document for things that regularly take place eg. weekly client approvals, in-house approvals, sending the clients minutes of the latest meeting, etc. to reduce the time spent on these less creative tasks.
• Make your to-do lists: At Wit and Chai, we use Trello to keep track of our daily tasks. By managing our time and work simultaneously, we end up finishing our regular tasks beforehand to move towards creative brainstorming sessions by the end of the day. By making a task list, you get the clutter out of your mind and leave some breathing space for creativity..
• Switching task timings: By randomly shuffling your daily task timings, your brain becomes occupied with new patterns and breaks the old routine. In advertising, it’s all about challenging your brain to think out of the box, not just in your ideas but also in the way you approach your work..
• Learning an unrelated skill: An account manager can always learn the basics of Photoshop from his/her designer colleagues. You never know what may come to use in the future. Live to learn and have the curiosity of a child.
  Keep an idea journal: By writing down your random ideas for anything related or unrelated to work, unfiltered, and as they come, you have proof of your creativity which you can expand later on. Free write in this idea journal and note down your key insights and observations in it.
• Some ‘me-time’: To keep yourself motivated, create a vision board or your personal portfolio on simple design tools like Canva to be crystal clear about your goals. This ensures personal development and growth.
• Take a break: Go for a short walk as you listen to your favourite music or podcast, pamper yourself with a cup of chai/coffee, or watch a stand-up comedy video to take your mind off work.
• Recharge during weekends: Weekends are days for maximum learning potential. With extra hours at hand, finish off household chores, start reading a new book or watch a new series. Some quality time with family and friends also works wonders to reset your brain for the week ahead.

At Wit and Chai, we proudly say that “Boredom is okay!” as it fosters our creativity and acts as a catalyst for better ideation. There’s a reason why everyone at our agency looks forward to the awesome Brainstorming sessions!