Following a question at an alumni event at my old school last week about my typical day, I got to reflect on just how untypical my job is and how much its variety suits me. So I thought I’d give you a snapshot of a day last week.
5am alarm. I’m an early bird and sit with a a cup of tea, catch up on emails, schedule daily social media/marketing and arrange my Trello to-do list for the day.
I look at where I will be as well as where the team will be to see if there are any pressure points throughout the day. We’re all looking out for each other and I need to be contactable.
6.15am I head out the door for a run or the gym. Always with music or a podcast, this might be my only me-time today and is essential to my health, both physical and emotional, managing my workload as well as feeling energised for the day.
I love breakfast and eat a lot while I can. Learning a language is also something I love! I normally spend a few minutes on my language app over breakfast. Using a totally different bit of my brain feels fantastic and I’m currently learning Portuguese.
7.45am. If I’m working in Norwich, I’m in the office for around this time. Managing an operational team that may need to speak to me on and off all day, rushing around a number of counties to meetings, keeping on top of admin and even doing some direct delivery means that this first 75 minutes of the day is precious.
It usually enables me to reconcile the bank account, undertake some marketing and strategy work as well as report writing, update systems, do some reading/research, prepare and plan for a meeting and quite often grab a coffee at NR2 in the process. There’s often cleaning, DIY or other office-running things too as I want to ensure our heavily utilised space is a nice place to come to work for the team and the people they support.
On this particular day I dash across town to meet Cara, our Chair of Directors at her local gym at 7.45am. We have a productive hour finalising the agenda for our next Board meeting (with new members) and their Induction.
9.30am Back in the office I have a good meeting with Jessica, our Employment Project Coordinator. Her service is being launch at the start of 2020 as a traded offer. We reflect on what we’ve achieved so far in terms of her Theory of Change and the modules of delivery that she is going to design. We then finalise her key marketing messages and timeline for the launch process.
10.30am. Meeting with accountant. I’m having some difficulties getting everything signed off for the last financial year and just need to get the accounts out the door. Sigh!
12pm. Catch up with Simone and our newest colleague, Tom. Methodically, using Trello (of course!) we go through all our mentees – from referral through to closure to assess progress and agree any actions for the team. This includes me as I’m excited to be conducting a mentor match on Friday!
1pm. Meet Tom to talk through some mentee processes and make calls to referrers so he can shadow me.
2pm. Some admin time. Catch up on emails, annual leave requests, file some invoices, check payroll has worked correctly, update pension with new employee and schedule our monthly newsletters. Probably some silly tweeting and team WhatsApp messaging too!
2.30pm. Get a call from a customer wanting to commission a one-day TILS+ course – yay. Drop everything to work up a quote, draft an SLA and schedule actions in team Trello. Manage to get one of five reports due this week off my desk too. Phew!
3.45pm. Call another customer wanting an update on a commission. No reply. Grrrr. Been chasing for weeks now…
4pm. Off to the Norfolk Show with Simone and Jessica. Heavy traffic, but lovely to show our faces and meet some very friendly ones. And so much more fun to do this with the team too.
8pm. Back home and must make something for the YOP team lunch tomorrow and prepare for my alumni talk at my old school!!
9pm. Zzzzzzz
