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Never start a project without a brief. I’m not sure who is telling you to “think ahead”, but I would never start giving a project my time and energy without direction from a brief. The only thing that will come out of that exercise is a bunch of ideas that are totally incongruent with client ask because you don’t know it yet. Advertising is a team sport for a reason.
Start protecting your time now. Once an agency sees they can take advantage of your time, they will do it, and they will expect that to become your normal pace. It’s okay to do overtime or weekend hours every once in a while on a large shoot, or a passion project, or pitch, but on every day projects it’s not normal.
When trying to advocate for yourself place the blame on the project load, not on your ability to handle it. What I mean by this is don’t tell them you’re overwhelmed, tell them that your X amount of projects need undivided attention.
Where are these asks coming from? Is there a way to escalate it to your supervisor on the creative side or are they coming from creative? Because if it’s the latter that’s a huge issue.
I totally second AD1s points. Don’t let this treatment become the norm bc your agency will take from you until you have nothing left
I’d frame it as a matter of prioritizing other work that’s further along: “I’m excited to work on this project, but it looks like the team is still figuring out the scope. While that’s getting worked out I need to focus on x, y, and x.”
Or if there is a brief set but you’re already over capacity, ask them for help prioritizing: “Right now I have x, y, and z in my queue. Can you let me know which is the most urgent?” Anything that isn’t actually hot can wait for tomorrow.
It’s important to be strategic with your time so you don’t burn out. Don’t give your all only to run in place.
I’ve been there. If you just keep letting them drop new work on you, plan on a lot of 50–60 hour weeks and a permanently unhappy stomach.
What finally worked for me was agreeing to take on new work only if they explicitly told me what to stop working on:
“I can take this on, but I’m already at capacity. Which of my current projects should I pause or slow down to make room for it?”
That says you’re doing everything you reasonably can without using words like “burned out,” and that you care about doing good work instead of spreading yourself thin just to say yes to everything. Otherwise you end up knowingly aiming for mediocrity, and nobody actually wins.
You don’t have infinite capacity, and admitting that isn’t weakness. It’s just the truth.