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9:30am: I hit snooze on my alarm. Come on, like you’ve never hit snooze? Those that know me, know I’m far from a morning person and unless I need to be up for a meeting I’ll take my sweet time. Sleep is important to me and always has been, it determines how the rest of my day unfolds and whilst it may seem like I have the day ‘free’, there’s a lot I need to get on with.
10:07am: I finally step out of bed trying to avoid being on my phone first thing in the morning. I hop in the shower, making me feel instantly awake and get dressed for the day. Usually when I’m at home I try not to lounge around in pyjamas until about 7pm. I really enjoy being at home when my day is varied. I’ve regrettfully booked in too many meetings for the next couple of days so I’m using today (Tuesday) to get as much deep work in as possible.
10:45am: Although I have a dedicated study, I tend not to use it in the mornings and instead sit at the dining table - a rather unused piece of furniture in my house - and conveniently located next to the window and street. The rare sunlight shining on me as I send out emails and organise final bits for this week’s Open Studio is usually how my days begin. I get a lot of emails. I’m also the type of person that prefers Inbox Zero and will neatly organise them into folders or leave in my inbox till I’ve completed the action required of me. Linda Ronstadt’s Blue Bayou plays on repeat as I do this.
11:00am I start a long deep work session making amendments to my latest branding project. My client, who is a qualified architect and highly experienced individual is starting her own business and I’ve been tasked with updating the colour palette and logo from my initial draft. I make a cup of tea (milk, two sugars) as a way to treat myself as I work.
The branding process often takes a varied length of time. I spend about half an hour just testing different shades of olive or tan to replace a baby pink. I also take a small break to watch a YouTube video by Peace Gates whilst I have my tea. Sometimes there will be music playing, other times I surprisingly get a lot done in complete silence.
12:45pm: I’m almost done exporting the new toolkit which makes up 2/3 of the overall actions I need to complete for this project. The other part of it is testing website design. My client has suggested preparing an additional proposal for this. I’ve created my fair share of websites and am still tweaking my own which you’ll see later on, but never formally created one for someone else so this territory feels familiar yet new.
I also share a few insights over on Instagram Stories, where the majority of my interactions take place and head upstairs to get changed to go to the gym. On days like this, a gym session is typically the only time I head out, and although it may seem sunny, I’m not fooled. The past few days have been extremely windy so I make sure to wrap up. In the car, I give my bestie a call, who’s also on his lunch break and we catch up for a bit.
1:33pm: Eventually, I make it to the gym. I don’t really have an elaborate plan or routine. I’m testing out a split of 15 minutes spent stretching and dumbell workouts, followed by a 12-3-30 routine on the treadmill. On my YouTube feed was an episode of First We Feasts’ Hot Ones, featuring Keke Palmer who made me chuckle, and then a video from Andrew Alexander which perfectly filled my 30 minutes.
2:20pm: Feeling good, I popped into B&M to buy a couple of snacks and an intriguing looking ‘protein water’. I went in for something else and got distracted by the snacks, as you do. Then got in my car and drove home.
2:35pm: After getting home and getting changed, I made myself a plate of food. There’s always plenty of leftovers for lunch and since my younger brother moved into halls for his first year at uni, my mum prepared a series of curries to last all of us the week. I added a few tablespoons of yoghurt and sat down to watch the next episode of Partner Track.
3:15pm: Usually by about 3pm, I feel like the first half of my day is complete. It’s also the time where sleepiness or the food coma kicks in so I ease myself back into ‘work’ by writing this very article. It’s actually pretty enjoyable and a little meta if you ask me.
3:36pm: Next on my list is to take another look at a freelance project that involves producing a zine. It’s for a mentor and friend of mine (not really sure how much I can share right now) but I’m also working with someone else who is in charge of the written copy going into the zine. It’s a fun project and I’ll be making a few tweaks to the layout as I spotted some mistakes. Tomorrow, I have a follow-up meeting to discuss the progress and present somewhat of a prepared layout by the end of the month. Once the content comes in, this should start taking shape.
3:45pm: Turns out, not many changes to make so I open up LinkedIn to do a bit of engagement. This is a great way of keeping on top of current news, seeing what people in my network are up to and making sure that my presence is still active. I post 3 times on LinkedIn, a cut from the 5 days I was doing last month (which got me about 80,000 impressions), but I prefer a slower approach. You don’t always have to have something to say.
4:00pm: I close my tabs, grab a cheeky chocolate brownie bite and take 5 minutes to stretch and walk around the house, away from screens. I remember that I downloaded the book Company of One as an audiobook on the train yesterday, so I grab my headphones to listen to it as my dad takes a nap in the living room. For the next few hours, I’ll be updating the webpage for Open Studio, which desparately needs an overhaul.
18:49pm: Almost done with my deep work session designing the new webpage for Open Studio. I used Figma to lay out the design and neaten up existing elements to be in line with my recent rebranding. I want to start with this page first as it’s the most outdated but also because I’ve made several changes to the Open Studio programme that I want reflected in the webpage should a potential practice take a look.
The design part is often the easiest and I thought I could import directly into Webflow but it requires an even more precise level of designing that I hadn’t thought about earlier. I spent half an hour watching a Figma to Webflow tutorial that answered a few of my questions around wrappers, containers and Div boxes. This is probably something I’ll have a go at in phases, but for now, my brain space is done for the day.
19:01pm: Typically around this time I take a break for a few hours to watch some tv, scroll on my phone and do chores around the house. Today, I’ll be catching up on all my current shows like Only Murders in the Building and funny K-Drama’s with my mum, as we do most evenings.