Working Smarter, Not Harder – How Leap Group colleagues find focus and work-life balance

With so many exciting new clients, projects and internal initiatives, spring is bringing a bustle of activity to all the Leap Group agencies. And while we love to see our business growing, we also know that creating (and maintaining) a proper-work life balance is essential for our team members’ wellbeing. According to a recent survey by the National Library of Medicine, a healthy work-life balance results in higher job satisfaction, better performance, and all-around higher life and family satisfaction.

Here at Leap Group, we support that through a number of benefits and offerings:

unlimited PTO, expanded paid maternity/paternity leave benefits, full remote flexibility, and 100% pet-friendly offices for those who come in to do work at one of our four locations (Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Louisville). Plus, we’re dedicated to helping employees access the mental health resources they need, and even developed a resource guide to help our LGBTQ+ team members access culturally competent and LGBTQ+ friendly healthcare providers and support networks in their local communities.

At the same time, we recognize that every one of our talented team members is unique! So, we started an informal internal conversation to learn what individuals were doing to find focus amid so much new business activity and maintain a healthy work-life balance. We found a lot of similarities among the answers and loved to see colleagues from different agencies swapping tips, apps and playlists. Here’s a small taste of how the movers and shakers at Leap Group are getting things done:

Tuning out distractions by tuning into playlists and podcasts

Hands down, the favorite tool used by Leap Group employees to find focus and get in that feel-good productivity zone was music. And no surprise – music has been shown to boost concentration, increase motivation, improve memory and brain stimulation, as well as improve your mood. Of course, volume, tempo and lyrics – along with the type of work you’re doing and your personal work style – all factor into the potential benefits of listening along while you work.

For instance, David Carrero, Director of Production and Animation at (spark), observes, “Since I’m not writing or thinking linguistically, lyrics aren’t a problem for me. I often listen to my own curated private playlists or Spotify’s AI DJ. Recent albums I’ve really enjoyed working to are Chappell Roan: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, The 1975: Being Funny in a Foreign Language, Bleachers: Take the Sadness out of Saturday Night, and Daft Punk: Random Access Memories. Podcast-wise, I’ll regularly follow a bunch of news-related podcasts and tech/gaming ones like The Vergecast, Decoder with Nilay Patel, The Kinda Funny Xcast, and Darknet Diaries.”

But for others, like Shane Doyle, Art Director at (human)x, a more minimalist approach is key: “Environment is big. I recently updated my office space to a point where I genuinely love being in here. It’s helped me stay at the desk and be productive.

I’ve also been putting ambient music on. There’s no lyrics or complex instrumentals that demand mental attention, but it still sets a tone for what I’m creating and puts me in a sort of trance.”

Fellow (human)x colleague David Thompson (Strategy Analyst) prefers a similarly chill vibe, like this lo-fi playlist on YouTube, while Agency Fit Consultant John Rivers turns to the video platform for a Noah Kahan playlist (equally important, he says, “headphones + flipping my phone upside down”). And for Leap Group Executive Creative Director Kenny Friedman, audio stimulus has to be bookended by plenty of caffeinated stimulus as well: “coffee + pinball when I’m having creative block + coffee + music (currently Fiona Apple) + coffee.”

Getting OOTO to get out of mental and creative blocks

For (matter) President Greg Fehrenbach, walking the aisles of a retail store can offer IRL inspiration for design and packaging projects, while hopping on the treadmill (with music and podcasts, of course) can help clear the mind and boost energy. Leap Group colleagues McKenzie Browning (Assistant Marketing Manager) and Natalie Weis (Senior Writer) both swear by the recharging benefits of lunchtime walks in their respective neighborhoods. “Even a small walk around the block can help rejuvenate me,” McKenzie says. Kenny Friedman agrees: “I get so many ideas when I’m walking my dog.”

And while she may be out of the office but still on the job, (spark) President Ember Marr knows the secret to success on set: “making sure there are enough snacks for the afternoon slump!” Her favorites for photography and video shoots? Pirates Booty and any kind of gummies to cover all the salty, crunchy, chewy and sweet bases.

Getting back to the tried-and-true with an old fashioned to-do list

Our PhD-led research team has a passion for uncovering what truly motivates action – whether it’s nudging our clients’ consumers to convert, or creating their own healthy habits! “If I relied on inspiration/motivation to get things done, I’d never get out of bed,” says Laura Valentine, Senior Market Research Analyst at (human)x. “So, I love a simple daily to-do list. That little list becomes my north star and I essentially have a rule that my workday isn’t done until the list is done. It’s very motivating to get things done by 5pm. The last thing I do at work is make the list for the next day.”

Laura adds, “I’m trying not to say that my productivity tip is literally Nike’s ‘just do it’ tagline, but it kind of is.” We’ll never deny the power of advertising, Laura!

Take a pause and let go of the inner perfectionist

For Maureen Johnson, Senior Account Director at Leap Group and the mother of two young children, productivity and a healthy work-life balance involves some self-care. “This starts with reframing your thoughts,” she says. “You’re getting pulled in a million directions, often chasing the clock, and your to-do list is growing. But take a pause and reframe the thinking because you’re actually crushing it. So first and foremost, be kind to yourself. Give yourself grace.”

Laura Valentine agrees that it’s important to go easy on yourself: “Done is better than perfect. Get something done, even if you don’t love it, and you’ll have time to go back and nurture it into something you’re proud of. But you have to get the first draft.” So, take a deep inhale and give yourself a chance to recenter and relax. Everything’s gonna be OK.

Making time for what matters most

It’s all too easy to get distracted by pings, dings, alerts, notifications, and good old fashioned phone calls and real-time interruptions. So, most Leap Group employees have found some way to block off their time when focus is paramount.

Michael Noble, Performance Marketing Consultant for the internal marketing team, was excited to tell us about his recent purchase of a digital timer: “Essentially I put my phone in another room/drawer and set a specific amount of time to accomplish deep work and not get distracted,” he says. “After the timer goes off, I’ll take a 5–10-minute break to go on a walk or check notifications before I start the cycle all over again.”

Ember Marr loves “Pomodoro timers for focus, as well as knocking out the most time-intensive work early in the day” and Kenny Friedman is a proponent of taking “45-minutes blocks to work on specific things” (plus, you know, more coffee). And for David Carrero, the hardest part is actually allowing interruptions: “The real skills I’ve developed are in learning how not to accidentally miss all of my meetings while lost in an editing flow-state,” he says. “The solution there is just having so many redundant notifications that hopefully one of them gets through.”

Letting the robots do the work

We wouldn’t be a digital advertising agency if we didn’t embrace some of the new AI tools to help with some of the more mundane tasks in our workday. Greg Fehrenbach loves ChatGPT and Midjourney (as well as some “good old-fashioned sketching”) to help get the creative juices flowing, and many other creatives across the Leap Group agencies have cited Kenny Friedman’s internal AI Workshops as huge assets in helping them quickly get to the concepting stage.

Ember Marr, meanwhile, loves our own proprietary humanView ABM tool: “It makes prepping for new business calls a dream by leveraging proprietary AI software to build personalized dossiers on new clients we’re speaking to, cutting my personal research time down by 90%.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves! But, if all else fails, we leave you with one final productivity “tip” from David Carrero: “I find bourbon to be a great motivator when working late on an animation, haha.”

Cheers, all you hardworking collaborators out there.