3 Ways to Make Time For Your Marketing Team to Do Great Work

Where do you do great work? Jason Fried, who has been asking people that question for 10 years, is fairly certain you won’t say that it happens at the office during business hours.

Co-founder and president of 37signals , a Chicago-based company that builds web-based productivity tools, Fried says most people give answers like “my kitchen,” “the coffee shop,” “the train,” or “early mornings.” The reasons: institutional distractions he refers to as “M&Ms”—managers and meetings.

Fried says we need to find ways to make our official work environments more like those environments in which we do great work, and he offers three ideas for doing so.

Are you a manager who can find ways to give your team time and space to do great work? If you are already doing so, share how you are finding the time and space and what results you have seen.

(Here’s another video with food for thought about how to help your creative team be more productive. Hint: It doesn’t involve constantly checking in.)

If you aren’t a manager, do you have a way to get away from Fried’s distracting “M&Ms” to do real, great work? Finding that solution is essential whether you are a veteran team member or just getting started in a new job. Add this to the tasks you should take on in Your First 100 Days In a New Marketing Job. Then tell us where you do your great work.