Ah, October, season of mellow missed meetings and fruit-less-ness. 

Anyone that’s been around the block a bit will know that as sure as Spring/Summer trends predict Breton stripy tops, clients will gaze nonchalantly at gmail calendars and splutter ‘but we’ve 12 weeks’ to the booze-fuelled close down masquerading at a religious holiday – when it’s actual nine. And counting (or six, if the approval process requires group sign off and the stakeholders to find diary space to discuss the final (as in Final_final_v22_109722_draft_v3 deck) actually useful, workable weeks to hit that target. You know, the one that seems so plausible back in May?

Anyone doing Sober October or Novocain-free November or whatever in agencyland, more power to you for setting aside the stimulants (or sedatives.)

The silly season clock is already ticking down towards December 24th (although clearly for anyone working in the retail POS trades, you’ll be putting your feet up now and having a good laugh having done the Feist-ive season in July.)

So, what to do if the clients’ are demanding the impossible in the next 12. No, nine. Er, seven weeks? Maybe remind them that even governments get things wrong and learning to admit it and the revise a plan is a sign of strength. A tower of moral-fibre-based good-person Ready-Brek-glow strength. 

That, and a quiet reminder you can both look forward to getting stuck in all over again on January 2nd.

So savour the darkening evenings as the diary-clock ticks down. You’re only 90-odd days from another year’s project work.

So tell me, where’s the gloom in that?