The PR Council hosted leadership coach and former agency executive Julie Vessel for a practical session on how to work smarter across accounts, clients, and teams. She began by acknowledging that most individuals struggle with managing pace and volume. Her advice: stop chasing the impossible to-do list. Accept your limitations and work with them.
Vessel shared three ways to make that shift:
Choose with purpose. Replace the endless to-do with a two-list system: a closed list of three high-value priorities for the week and an open list for operational tasks that must get done. Protect the closed list and contain the open one. Timebox priority work on your calendar and treat it like a meeting. Start small if needed; thirty minutes once a week still moves the ball.
Manage with intention. Treat your time as precious. Before accepting a meeting, ask if you really need to meet, whether you have an active role, and what you’re giving up by saying yes. Try the cut-in-half rule to shorten meetings, and audit recurring ones. Default to async updates where possible, such as shared dashboards or quick written check-ins.
Respond with confidence. When the urgent requests hit, pause. Clarify what is actually needed, when it will be used, and who else can help. Say yes when it aligns and negotiate trade-offs when it doesn’t. If you need to decline, try “no with love,” which signals care and offers a path forward without taking it all on.
As Vessel reminded, “Progress, not perfection. You’ll never do it all, but you can do what matters most.”
| PRC Members: Watch the full session in the Resource Library to explore more of Vessel’s tools and examples. |