Whether you're invading a continent, creating a masterpiece or writing copy, you've got to put the hours in
42 hours, six cans of red bull, 11 cups of tea, and now here's a newsletter
I’ve slept since I wrote this. Thank fuck. But at 11:28 pm on June 7th, I’d not had so much as a cat-nap in 42 odd hours.
Not because I’d done anything dramatic like paced the corridors of a hospital, or burned the candle at both ends to finish a project, or even had one of those “two quiet pints in Eccles with The Phoenix which ends up with you both downing lukewarm Buckfast in an Edinburgh flat with Anne Summers brochures glued to the walls nearly two days later” evenings that used to be my forte.
Nah. I’d just been watching a documentary.
From 11pm on June 6th, TimeGhost ran a 24 hour real time documentary on the D-Day landings. Despite the fact I’d been up since half six that morning, I sat down on the couch to watch it. And stayed there for the next 24 hours and 28 minutes.
I’m a history buff. I know all about D-Day. I can tell you that HMS Warspite opened the bombardment at 5:30am, that the British and Canadian paratroopers had a hell of a day, and that the tank traps in Saving Private Ryan are the wrong way round. I know my granddad spent the day sailing up and down the Belgian coast as a distraction, and frankly I know that was the best place for him.
I had an understanding of events. But putting the time in over 24 hours gave me a much fuller understanding - along with something I didn’t have.
Empathy.
It’s one thing knowing General Eisenhower was unable to sleep, chain smoking and reading a book about cowboys at 3am. It’s another thing empathising because it’s 3am for you, you aren’t going to sleep, and you know men are about to die.
It’s the same lesson I learned from a book Martin recommended to me. 4,000 weeks.
Being conscious of where you’re investing your limited time gives it all more meaning. By investing a day of my time into events from 79 years earlier, I gave those events more meaning. I understood them more fully. I empathised with the work that went into planning it and pulling it off.
There’s a story in 4,000 weeks about an art scholar. She makes her students look at a piece of art for four straight hours. Investing the time in observation means the art they choose has more meaning. They understand it more fully. They empathise with the work that went into creating it.
It’s why all the best copywriters use a technique we call copyworking.
You take a long form ad (probably something Ogilvy wrote for Volkswagen) and you observe it.
You spend the time looking at it. Analysing it. Understanding it.
Then you get a pen, an honest to god physical tube of metal, plastic and ink. You take a piece of paper. Not a Gdoc, not Apple Notes, a flat bit of dead tree.
Then you write out all of that copy by hand.
It gives the work you choose more meaning. You understand it more fully. You empathise with the work that went into creating it.
And you get closer to being able to do it yourself. It’s not the only way to learn, but if there’s a better way to turn surface level understanding into something deeper, I’ve yet to find it.
Whether you’re invading a continent, creating a masterpiece, or writing copy, you’ve got to put the hours in.
Something mint - this ad for a Belgian recruiter
Recruiters get a bad rap. Half of them deserve it. Most of the other half, in my experience, think that “we’re not like other recruiters” is a good key message.
Belgian recruiters Impact though, they have a different message. That working with your hands is more satisfying than working with a computer (bet they’ve not re-written Lemon a dozen times though).
And what they’ve done here is turned that satisfaction into a benefit not just for the people they’re recruiting, but for the people who’ll hire them. You really can’t beat someone who’s prepared to roll up their sleeves, put the time in, and do the work.
Chat GPT can’t finish a building. It it probably can’t help you recruit the right person for your role either.
And it certainly can’t pick up a pen, copy down one of Howard Luck Gossage’s world-changing adverts and then get better at writing ad copy.
That’s the thing with robots. They’ll never put the hours in.