The last day

I have sadly reached the end of my four weeks in the Professional Public Relations office, but not without learning a huge amount. Continuing on from my previous post, I'll be discussing one of the fundamental lessons I've learned recently in this blog.

Before I do that, I just want to take another chance to recommend a PPR placement to anyone thinking of doing work experience, but remember it is a month full time, so be prepared to work hard for four weeks.

I've been challenged, I've had a lot of laughs, and I've learned a lot. The last month has absolutely flown by and while it's a scary thought to be finishing up my time at Curtin in three months, I feel like after my PPR internship I'm a lot more ready (though not totally ready) to take on the big bad world.

Moving on!

In my last post I talked about attention to detail, and in this post I'll be reinforcing that age-old lesson of time management.

As a Uni student, and a male, my time management skills are inherently terrible (sorry lads, but we all know it's true). I really had to hit the ground running every day for a month and good time management is not something you can teach, it's something you have to develop. Lucky for me I'm also an adaptable creature and I was able to juggle everything just right to not only get all my work done to a high standard but, arguably almost as important, make contact with the powers that be in the office so they remember me (more on this later)

Time management is, like attention to detailed, drilled in to us students from day one - probably even day one of high school. It's essential to be able to manage your time in a consultancy if you have any hope of surviving, especially as an intern trying to complete more work than you should to please and impress everybody.

To illustrate the importance of time management, here is a picture of you as an intern without good time management:

And here is calm, collected you after managing your time well:

From personal experience I can offer you a couple of tips on how not to get overloaded and stressed:

1. Don't take on more than you can handle - If you don't have capacity, say so. No one will be offended or upset if you explain that you won't be able to get the work they want done in time, so don't be afraid to say "no."
2. Be sure of your deadlines so you know how long you have to complete something - if you've got four things due in an hour but capacity after that, ask if it can wait. Usually, it can.
3. Take regular breaks so you don't start making careless mistakes and having to re-do things. Not long breaks every 15 minutes, but stretch, go and get a drink of water, wander around the office looking busy with papers - everyone does it to stay sharp.
4. Practice as much as you can. I know you're probably wondering how you practice something like time management, but there are ways:

• Plan your future projects/tasks and set goals in a realistic time, then achieve those goals.
• List all the things you have to do tomorrow then do them today, before lunchtime. That's the pace PR consultants work at, but they're never (unduly) stressed.
• Write down work as you get it, and when the deadlines are. That way you have a physical list of everything you need to do and you won't forget to do anything.

This post is starting to get a bit lengthy and I have some things to tie off before my last Friday drinks at the office. I will be posting one more blog next week once I've got myself together with Uni etc, but as a teaser I've had a very positive conversation with some important people here, to be followed up next week.

Thanks to everyone at PPR for having me for the last month, it really has been a great experience.

Good luck to Sandrine who will take the reins for August, it's going to be a very busy month with PFF and c2030 events creeping ever closer. Don't stress, you'll do fine!

Check back next Thursday/Friday for (hopefully) some very good news.

- Morgan Riley