Of me, not this box – I just like the photo
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.
06:50 – 5k 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:Â 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.Â
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.
