“I do some of my best work … between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m.,” she told the magazine. “I get more work done during that little period of time when the world is calm, energies are down. I just feel like a farmer.”

Few of us keep Parton’s crazy hours, but that doesn’t mean any one of us has had an easy-breezy schedule the last few months. Working from home and avoiding the daily commute might’ve seemed like a luxury at the outset of the pandemic, yet many c-suite executives in the marketing and brand space have come to find themselves on a whole other type of treadmill, with daily lives that are more demanding than ever. It’s no wonder so many of us relish the idea of returning to the relative serenity of the office.

One such executive whose daily routine went into overdrive is Mark Battista, head of ideas and innovation at Manchester, N.H.-based York Creative Collective and managing director of its integrated marketing agency GYK Antler, which has done work for the likes of Timberland and Red Bull. “There are Zoom calls from 9 to 5, and you have an email to set up a Zoom with a text to confirm,” said Battista.

Three months into the pandemic, management decided enough was enough and demanded employees set aside a couple of hours in the workday to do their own thing — that is, anything but work. “It’s your time to exercise, go think, change diapers, go in the corner and cry, or just take a breath,” he said. “We’re at this weird crossroads, where people say they’re working harder than ever but also say they love working from home. It can’t be both.”

Simon Berg, CEO of New York-based Ceros, a content software company with clients including The Guardian and Vice Media, has been strict about keeping the lines from blurring. “I’m very deliberate about when [the workday] starts and when it ends,” he said. “I do everything I would have done prior to the pandemic: I get up, shower, shave and put on cologne like I would as if it were a regular day at work.”

He’s found that the disruption of the daily routine has had its benefits. “The big lesson I’ve come to understand on a deeper level is that adversity is the birthplace of creativity. It’s actually a good place to hang out.”

The lack of a commute at first created a quandary for Chris Sojka, chief creative officer of Brooklyn indie shop Madwell, with clients including Johnson & …read more

Source:: Digiday