Control and Chaos

This is Part 6 of our series on "The creative industry's relationship with time". If you missed it, read part 5 here.

‍

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."

- Maya Angelou

‍

The relationship between control and chaos in creative agencies presents one of the most persistent paradoxes in our industry. On one side stands the business imperative for predictability, efficiency, and measurable outcomes. On the other, the creative necessity for exploration, risk-taking, and the productive disorder from which breakthrough ideas emerge. 

‍

The perpetual wobble. 

An imperfect balance. It looks like it shouldn’t work, but down to sheer persistence, stubborn-ness and perhaps resistance to change, it keeps on working just enough.

Time tracking sits at the intersection of these competing forces—simultaneously a tool for creating order and a potential catalyst for creative chaos. Understanding this tension is essential if we want to build businesses and cultures with a happy team and a healthy profit.

‍

The Allure of Control

The desire to control time in creative agencies stems from legitimate business needs:

‍

• Financial predictability: Knowing how long work takes helps forecast revenue, manage cash flow, and maintain profitability.

• Resource optimisation: Understanding time patterns allows for more effective team allocation and capacity planning.

• Client expectations: Setting and meeting deadlines builds trust and demonstrates professionalism.

• Process improvement: Identifying inefficiencies creates opportunities to streamline workflows and eliminate waste.

‍

These control mechanisms provide the stability that allows creative businesses to survive and thrive. Without some degree of predictability, agencies quickly become financially unsustainable, regardless of their creative output. In most creative businesses, I’ve been in, the phrase “we’re about 12 weks away from going out of business could be heard at least once.” (I don’t think that was just because of me – but now I think about it!)

It’s usually the case that chaos can rule and everything is fine… until it isn’t.

As one operations leader noted in It's Nice That: 

‍

”Time tracking systems can be helpful to support an agency's pricing model, which helps translate the level of effort to the client audience – who often have little knowledge or respect to the time that needs to go into delivering good creative."

– Is it time to rethink timesheets, It’s Nice That,

‍

It’s a perspective that recognises control doesn’t have to be the enemy of creativity but a necessary partner—creating a stable foundation from which creative risks can be taken. Of course, there are those times when you share how long it’s going to take and the client says, “well, just do it quicker.”

‍

The necessity of chaos

On the other side, excessive control can strangle the very creativity that agencies exist to produce. It turns certain people in a business into the police (“have you done your timesheets?”) and others into rebels, or perhaps children–depending on your perspective. True creativity requires space for:

‍

• Exploration: Following unexpected paths without knowing where they might lead.

• Experimentation: Trying approaches that might fail but could lead to breakthrough solutions.

• Incubation: Allowing ideas to develop at their own pace rather than forcing them into predetermined timelines.

• Serendipity: Creating conditions where unexpected connections and insights can emerge.

‍

Rick Rubin captures this essential quality in "The Creative Act": 

‍

"The creative process is not linear. It doesn't move forward in a straight line. Sometimes we need to wander to find our way. Sometimes we need to get lost to discover something new."

‍

This productive chaos isn't a bug in the creative process but a feature—the necessary disorder from which original thinking emerges. But, as we posed earlier, can you give it a number in a quote?

The problem isn't that agencies must choose between control and chaos, but that they often create a false binary between the two. In reality, these forces exist in dynamic tension, each enabling the other when properly balanced. But that’s not the ‘zen’ balance where everything achieves perfect alignment. It’s more the plate-spinning, balancing on a Swiss ball, kind of just about to stack it, imperfect balance. Or perhaps a ballerina, making it look effortless, skilful, but also open to stacking it at any moment.

Too much control without chaos leads to predictable, uninspired work that fails to differentiate. Too much chaos without structural control leads to missed deadlines, budget overruns, and unsustainable business practices. 

The ultimate goal of creativity, can happen at multiple moments during the bck and forth dance between these seemingly opposing forces—using control to channel chaos productively rather than eliminate it entirely.

‍

As Wesley ter Haar of MediaMonks explains: 

”I think there's a huge value in having solutions be carried by the team themselves instead of feeling like it's very top-down process... We sometimes accrue a bit of operational stress to see what solution a team comes up with, instead of trying to preempt operational stressors." 

‍

This approach recognises that some degree of chaos isn't just inevitable but valuable—creating the conditions for teams to develop their own solutions rather than simply following prescribed processes.

‍

Controlled chaos

Is controlled chaos the way forward? Or, ‘eye-roll’ is this how it’s felt for you all along? What if we treat it as an intent rather than an observation? Planning just enough structure to ensure business sustainability but enough freedom to enable creative flourishing.

This balanced approach might include:

‍

• Flexible frameworks: Creating processes that guide rather than dictate, providing direction while allowing for adaptation.

• Bounded exploration: Setting clear parameters within which teams have complete creative freedom.

• Strategic unpredictability: Intentionally building space for unexpected discoveries within otherwise structured projects.

• Adaptive planning: Creating systems that can respond to emerging opportunities rather than rigidly adhering to predetermined paths.

‍

Principles are all well and good (usually on about slide 5 of a strategy deck), but what might it look like in practice?

‍

Time blocking with buffers: Try scheduling focused work time while building in buffers for the unexpected detours that often lead to breakthrough ideas. We do it for going to the gym, or ‘lunch’ why not do it for the time we want to earmark as untouchable for our best work?

‍

Milestone-based tracking: Focus on key deliverables and outcomes rather than micromanaging every hour. What if you compartmentalised your day and instead recorded 25% on this project, 10% over here for this client and 65% on the concept development that I really needed to get my head into?

‍

Mixed-mode planning: Combine highly structured production phases with more exploratory ideation periods. Why not block out ‘days’ of uninterrupted work at the beginning of a project?

‍

Retrospective learning: Use time data not as a control mechanism but as a learning tool to improve future planning. Rather than the accounts team or studio manager reporting on what went well and what went wrong, allow the team to openly and honestly lead a project retro for themselves and come back with what to stop, start and continue for the next project?

‍

Patterns, can also help unlock a more flexible approach: 

‍

”I would look to track a sample number of projects throughout the year to determine that our pricing and scoping truly reflected an average of time spent per stage of a creative brief, and use that to inform our pricing strategy." 

A quote from an Operations Leader in an interview for It’s Nice That.

‍

An approach like this can use time data for learning and improvement rather than rigid control, recognising that some projects will take longer than expected while others might be completed more quickly.

‍

Show me the business case

For agency leaders concerned about the bottom line, it's worth noting that the right balance of control and chaos isn't just creatively essential—it's economically valuable.

‍

• Innovation premium: Clients pay more for original thinking than for predictable execution.

• Adaptability advantage: Agencies that can respond to changing conditions outperform those with rigid processes.

• Talent attraction: Creative professionals are drawn to environments that balance structure with freedom as well as guaranteeing them opportunities to work on ‘cool stuff.’

• Sustainable creativity: Balancing control and chaos prevents both the burnout of excessive pressure and the aimlessness of insufficient direction.

‍

We need to move beyond static approaches to time management, toward more dynamic systems that can adapt to the changing needs of different projects, teams, and creative phases.

This imperfect balance recognises that the relationship between control and chaos can not be fixed but instead, demands to be fluid—shifting based on the nature of the work, the needs of the client, and the stage of the creative process.

We’ll likely never flatten out the ups and downs of agency life, and arguably, it can be part of the attraction. Some of my greatest memories have come from late nights, early morning dashes to the airport, weekend lunch before cracking another idea for a pitch. 

Early conceptual phases might benefit from more chaos and less control, while execution and delivery phases might require the inverse. Some team members might thrive with more structure, while others produce their best work with greater autonomy.

The key isn't finding the perfect balance once and for all, but creating systems that can adapt to these changing needs—providing just enough control to enable productive chaos rather than stifling it, or stay on the Swiss ball instead of ending up in a heap next to it. And, most importantly, ensuring it’s sustainable and rewarding from a personal AND business perspective.

‍

In the end, the relationship between controlling and chaos-inducing approaches to time isn't really a problem to be solved but a polarity to be managed. But it does need to be managed. The effects of blindly following what’s always been done and expecting a different outcome, is, as famously quoted, insanity.