SCABs

The carrot and the stick – By @monaonthemoon

Mona Sharif

By Mona Sharif

 

The carrot and the stick 

 

Pete Cain, ex-student at the original School of Communication Arts in 1994 and great copywriter mentor told us on week one, day four : SCA is like learning to ride a bike, but coached by 100’s of people telling you how you should do it. 

There isn’t one way of doing great advertising, you have to find your way.

It’s all about you and your balance.

I remember I found this analogy really interesting and on this week’s Friday reflection slides, as each of my fellow Penguins were explaining their best tricks and tips for better time management, I realised this time again, there isn’t one right way to do it. 

Anam explained to us that she plans her goals/tasks of the day before going to bed the night before. I found this really intriguing and made me wanna try to become a night planner!

On the other hand, some of us talked about how great it is to have a diary, or to plan each day hour by hour, and I know those two techniques don’t work for me and that I would prefer, for example, to replace them by to-do lists.

During a meeting with Marc, I realised that my biggest issue was not even time management, but the fact that I care so much about doing things well that I can get afraid of not being good enough and failing. Being afraid of doing bad work, procrastinating, and pushing it to the point it’s too late to do it, then having too much deadlines and work…

This can very quickly become a vicious circle.

Term two is the term you fail, fail and fail again. Then, learn from your mistakes, and get better. 

Marc then talked to me about the carrot–and–stick approach, which is an idiom that refers to a traditional motivation theory combining a reward and a punishment to motivate and influence behaviour. 

He then gave me a challenge, which consists of doing (at least) one new SMP (Single-Minded Proposition) or a scamp that I would add to my book every day until the half term break. Which means 28 new SMP/Scamps. 

This experience also includes a reward and a punishment that we both agreed on. 

Challenge accepted.

I believe this method can revolutionise the way you work if you stick to it. And I will. 

See you in 4 weeks for a special SCAB Review of the carrot–and–stick experience.

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