A day in the life

Of me, not this box – I just like the photo

John Doe deliveries

Recently, on the way back to London after a client meeting, I had an urge to get home and make shoot some stop-motion video. I’ve done a few before and, well, I enjoy it.

Upon expressing this to a colleague, he replied: ‘That’s great! But, I have to ask something: where do you find the time? I love photography but never find the time do it…’

My response?

‘Discipline, time-compression, and a commitment to no wastage are all key. Make [and keep] promises to yourself. For example, I try to do keep Thursday lunchtimes free each week to work on a project of my own choosing. Try that, and then build from there’.

And then thought about it some more and figured that some more analysis might be useful. It’s been a while since I’ve written up my day like this (five years in fact), so this should be interesting (for me, at least).

So here goes: my diary/schedule for Thursday 7th February 2013 –

05:45 – Alarm goes off (on my phone, of course).

05:55 – Record Episode 035 of The Voicemail. We normally try and record on a Thursday night but Stefan is traveling at the moment and he’s being replaced by various guests from all across the globe. This week’s guest was based on the East Coast and it was easier for both of us to shoot at this time.

06:505k run (yup, up to 5k now – every other day too. I’ve come a long way in five weeks, I think a follow up post may be required)

07:40 – Home, shower, get ready for work.

08:00 – Leave for the office.

08:10 – Commute / reading time (current book: What the Plus! by Guy Kawasaki, a recommendation from Stephen Waddington).

08:50 – Pick up breakfast / coffee.

09:00 – Call with an industry peer and trusted friend to discuss a future project.

09:15 – Email, team meetings, catch up with yesterday’s actions / meetings.

10:30 – Social@Ogilvy training workshop (part one)

12:50 – Lunch. Eat. Check in with the team. Thursday project alarm goes off, so I call the venue for #NotatMWC and tell them we’re going to need more room.

13:30 – Social@Ogilvy training workshop (part two)

16:00 – Re-group with team, catch up on projects; share lessons from the workshop. Email.

Sidenote: I’ve got into the habit of screening email whenever possible and only sitting down to respond once or twice a day. It’s helping productivity incredibly. I understand that not everyone can do this, but when you get to the point of being able to – I highly recommend it. 

18:05 – leave the office

18:10 – Commute. Manage to get a seat and start editing the morning’s Voicemail episode (much to my enjoyment – you can’t read audio waves over someone’s shoulder).

18:40 – Stop in town to pick up a cable for my mac, plus stop for a cup of tea with a friend.

19:45 – Time to head home.

20:15 – Get home: dinner, publish The Voicemail, hug the girl, watch a movie (Contagion – dark, yet dull).

23:55 – Time for bed.

Sprinkle the above with a few bits of social media usage (I count 36 tweets, including RTs etc, two Facebook updates, and one G+ update – mainly in the bits between doing anything, ie: walking between stations etc) and that’s just about it.

Alright that was all a bit full on and most days I don’t do workshops, nor do I get up before 6am to record international podcasts, but still – there’s hardly any ‘dead’ time in my day. Ever. But that’s not to say I don’t ever stop, I just didn’t happen to stop on Thursday.

 

New Year, New Choices: Running

Yes, that’s right: RUNNING.

It's time to start running!

noun [mass noun]
the action or movement of a runner: his running tore United to shreds
– the sport of racing on foot: marathon running

_______________________________

I’m not a big one for resolutions. Hell, I haven’t even made any this year. But a strange thing happened on January 1st, something that I’m not sure has happened to me before; I woke up, around 8am, having only had only around 3-4hrs sleep (after much fun and shenanigans on NYE, of course) and I wanted to go on a run.

I hadn’t decided to

“I’m going for a run” I said.

And I did.

And the following day I did it again, and the day after that I ran again, and then on the 4th? Well, then I took a break. It seems not running for years and then taking it up again suddenly and rather aggressively isn’t the way to do these things. There was limping, and a fair bit of pain, and all my running friends (turns out I have a few) came out of the woodwork to advise on all sorts.

So here we go: the complete 100% newbie and unscientific list of things to do if you’re going to start running:

1. Actually go for a run
Yeah, it seems an obvious one but getting out there and doing it is the easiest way forward. Get that out of the way and you’re halfway there. No, scratch that, you’re all of the way there. You have done some running. Well done.

2. Warm up (and then down again)
I didn’t do this at first and I suffered for it. I recommend you don’t make that mistake.

STRETCH

Warming up? Some stretching before you head out is definitely a good idea (thanks to the comments, only stretch AFTER your workout – see I am a newbie! However you should definitely) Consider ‘briskly’ walking for the first five minutes of the route you’re about to embark upon. Stupid really, you’d think people would know to do this. Even when I went for my first run I remember thinking ‘Yup, we definitely used to warm before any sports in PE at school… but I’m an adult now! I don’t need to deal with such tomfoolery!’ – I am a numpty, clearly. But that means you could be too. SO WARM UP, (then do some stretching when you’re done too).

And that’s it really. Straight up – that. is. it.

Warm up. Run. Warm down. Done.

Well, there’s a few more, but these next few are 100% optional.

3. Pick an app
There are a whole ton of sports-tracking apps available for your selection, each of them measuring all kinds of things from the route you take, through to your avg. speed; some can plug into other services and some you can integrate into your entire LIFE.

Endomondo, Run Keeper, Nike+, there’s loads. Me? I’ve gone for Sports Tracker. Why? It’s across the most platforms and, given that I swap phones every month, it’s the best one there is. Your choice might be different. Do some research.

4. Get the right kit
When I say ‘kit’, I mean – these are the things that I don’t run without –

Kit

First up, my hoodie. It’s bloody cold out there at the moment (and it won’t be getting warmer anytime soon) and I’ve got one of those Superdry hoodies which is pretty damn cosy, and good for running in. It’s not rained yet, so I don’t if it does actually keep me Superdry, but only time will tell (christ, rain. I hadn’t thought about that). Either way, it does the job. Winner.

Second, my mobile. Currently Up until yesterday* this is was a Nokia Lumia 920** and [while it’s not the most robust handset in the world] it has done a good job of not only tracking my runs to date, but also providing the tunes to said workouts too.

Finally, some decent shoes!

New trinners

I got the above bad boy Asics from Runners Need on Great Portland Street. They cost me £70 and I got a free gait-analysis thrown in too. I’d never heard of that analysis part before but those running friends I told you about earlier? They all swear by it. Get tested, then get the trainers you need to mate.

Again, this isn’t gospel; you can run in plimsols if you so wish! However, I’m committing to this (hence the bloggage too I guess) and want the kit to see me through. And hey, if you find yourself on the streets of Maida Vale one morning (say around 7ish), look out for this knackered-looking guy –

Morning runs: ain't fun (yet)

– he may even fancy a race!

Maybe.

In time.

Like, in a month or three.

 

*Device at the moment is now the Motorola RAZR i, just while said uber-damaged Windows Phone is in for repair. Still using Sports-Tracker though, which rocks.

 **I know I moaned about it on The Voicemail, but since then it’s really grown on my and I’m actually sad to see it go.

 

Recent things…

aka ‘5 things on Friday’, issue #0.

One of the blogs I read fairly regularly is that of ex-BBC chappy, Hugh Garry.

He’s a smart chap and I finally managed to meet him at a social media week event a little while back, which was nice. One of the things he mentioned back then was an attempt he was making on his blog called ‘5 things I liked this week‘.

Once a week [well, nearly – get back on the horse Hugh!] he just puts exactly that: five links to five things that he liked that week. I’ve been doing something similar for the ‘heads for a while now and, well, I think I’d quite like to do something similar, for myself, in 2012.

Every Friday (hopefully on my way home from work) I’m going to jot down the five things I’ve done or seen that week. Or perhaps even five things that have happened to me or that I’ve seen or whatever. Either way, it’s going in the Moleskine and then, naturally, it’s ending up on here.

To kick off, and for memory’s sake, this is the one I started God knows when earlier this year, but with a much larger number than five. Call it ‘Cool things that happened in 2011’ or something.

So, in no particular order:

_______

AND THAT’S IT!

Wow…  I aimed for 5 and I finished with 55.  Not bad for my first go.

Let’s see how this works out for 2012.

🙂

Alfie and James

Pic taken from aforementioned cooking comp; ‘Nom Nom Nom 2011‘, Alfie and  I – aka ‘The Hirsute Hashtag Slingers‘ – looking dashing and awesome, ready and raring to go.

We had such fun that day and this pic just makes me smile.

via Annie Mole

I’ve been away…

…to sort a few things out.

A few weeks ago I flew to Moscow for a couple of days and from there, caught the train to Beijing (stopping off for a few nights in Ulanbator, Mongolia along the way). The journey itself was perfect and pretty much exactly what I needed.

To put things in perspective: over the past month I’ve jogged around Red Square in the morning snow, galloped across the Mongolian desert in the afternoon sun and – thanks to a midday downpour – got soaked to the skin deep within the Forbidden City. ‘Spectacular’ doesn’t quite do it justice.

There’s much to catch up on [and a fair amount of moleskinerie to write up] but for now, it’s good to be home.

 

Monkey Business

The Brothers Whatley

My little brother has been in town all week and last night, finally, we managed to make some time to sit down and chat rubbish for a few minutes.

The camera gives up right at the end (my fault for not deleting all my #vlomo content off the memory from last year), but I think it ends everything with quite a nice little cliffhanger that perhaps we can pick up on next time…

I will never get tired of making these. Ever.