There are only 30 days until Christmas Eve. This usually means that the year-end rush has already started in business (and at home), or it will start soon. 2020 has been an extraordinary year: planning – reorganizing, budgeting – recalculating, run-stop-restart, home office – back to the office. I’m sure that the end of this crazy 2020 still holds some surprises, so it’s good to have some extra ideas (and energy) to battle the challenges.
In the past more than twelve years I have worked for different multinational companies as a marketing expert. The year end meant final budget reports, campaign summaries, presentations with strict deadlines, closing contracts. While our team also had to prepare the next year’s sales-supporting documents, videos, campaign plans, brochures. It meant that we had to have contributed to the legal department, registration and EHS colleagues and external stakeholders in different languages – translating from English to local languages, transcreating the technical terminology to adapt messages.
The days before the winter holiday had been more than challenging until my business coach helped me to learn small tricks* to help to master the chaos in my head and in the tasks.
A goal without a plan is just a wish
Stop for an hour (you will still have 239 left) and create a task list with the deadlines, time, budget, teammates needed, then prioritise. Yes, it takes a long time and you have so much to dooooo now, but this is the key. After prioritising you can decide what can be postponed or what can be solved within the company by other colleagues. You will also see that
if you don’t have the internal resources for tasks or projects, you can outsource them to external experts.
If I could travel back in time, in 2019 I would suggest to myself to find a professional language service agency before starting to create the whole local marketing and sales toolbox for a new marketing campaign on my own. From the translation of product data sheets, package labels, brochure and leaflet contents, up to the typesetting of PowerPoints, transcribing and localisation of product and event videos, the an agency with services beyond translation could have helped me with its expert team. Now I know that
outsourcing is a superpower in order to clone yourself during challenging projects.
With this superpower I could have the possibility, not only to stop work, but finally to finish all the tasks on that list before the holiday starts. No more files in the in-tray like a ‘bête noire’ waiting for re-opening in January…
There are 240 working hours until the winter holidays. I dream about a peaceful preparation time and a really relaxing holiday, so in 2020 I will use my superpower.
Are you ready to use your superpower?
Outsource your translation tasks or multilingual projects! Click and let our project managers support you with detailed timelines, budget calculations and price offers.
Written by Csilla Dömötör, Marketing Communication Manager
*My examples now are about multilingual projects and language services, but these tricks can be used in different sectors of business
