6.30am woken up by my youngest daughter. Time to get the other two kids up and ready for school with the help of my lovely au pair, Alicia. A quick flick through my Twitter feed to see what’s happening in the world and a quick email check for any overnight missives that need my attention.
7.30am Attempt to get oldest daughter out of her bed and out of the house in time to make the school bus whilst simultaneously checking work calendar to see what lies ahead. Outfit chosen the night before (Whistles and Zara of course!), thrown on and out the door with trusty laptop in handbag. A minor momentary distraction with The Pool as it lands in my inbox.
8.30am Drop the youngest two at school and run for the train to London, picking up a take away cup of tea on the way from Paul at the station. And breathe. My 45 minute train journey is sacrosanct. Time to get prepared for the day ahead, tether my phone and start the email trawl as well as read up on some of the people I’m meeting later. If I have any time, I like to catch up on a podcast – either Emma Barnett’s Eye of the Storm, Desert Island Discs or Women’s Hour.
9.15am Arrive in London. Time for the weekly PR Network team conference call. Although we are scattered across the UK from London to Cornwall to Essex we catch up every week via Hangouts or appear.in. This is our time to catch up on each other’s workload and plan what looks like a really busy final quarter of 2017. We like to do it face to face (virtually!) as it’s always fun to see where we all are – when the connectivity issues don’t disrupt too much!
11am Finished first meeting of the day with a fantastic new senior associate who wants to join our Network. Our network has been built on referral, so it’s important we get to meet people who offer relevant experience to the briefs we are working on, and understand how we can work together.
1pm Lunch with a former colleague and fellow working mum of 3, about to start a big new job as head of comms for a tech company. We like to get together regularly and compare notes on how to juggle work and life – and parenting tweens!
2pm Time to put the finishing touches to a new business proposal with the team. We’re excited by this opportunity in the green energy space, as it plays to our strength as a virtual business able to draw on expertise across markets.
4pm Time for two more associate meetings and my 30th cup of tea for the day! Although not a coffee drinker, I always have a cup of tea in arm’s reach, particularly when meeting with some of the UK’s most senior comms professionals and I’ve been up since the crack of dawn…
5pm A quick conference call with our client The Chapel to see how the Christmas gift guide campaign is going. The beauty of our 1600 strong network is the breadth of opportunities we can work on. We do the EMEA analyst relations for Dropbox, an international launch in Iceland for Zipcar and a luxury consumer fragrance range in the UK – amongst others.
5.30pm Finishing off email and getting prepared for tomorrow before jumping on the train home. Train journey is a chance to whiz through The Skimm and see what’s happening in the US.
7.00pm Home in time to put the smallest to bed and catch up with eldest two on how their day has gone.
8.00pm Last check of email and Slack before signing off. This time, leaving my phone downstairs so not tempted to keep checking work email. Until tomorrow!
@georgeblizzard
