Normally the alarm goes off between five and five thirty. I’m generally a morning person, so I like to be up early and normally manage to miss the worst of the commuter crush. In the summer my wife and I give the dog a quick walk before it’s too hot and I make a coffee, shower and aim for the 6:27 train into London.
Having recently moved I’m enjoying my shorter journey to work, it’s around a little over an hour door to door. I will normally browse twitter and some news on the walk to the station to ensure I know if anything drastic has occurred I need to be aware of. I like to use the time on the train and tube to keep up to date with my reading lists or listen to a podcast.
I like to be the first one in the office and use the time to list the major tasks I need to do that day and make a note of any calls or meetings I need to attend.
The best part about my job is that there really isn’t an ‘average day’, every day is different and although I like to have key tasks to complete each day I do have to allow myself to be reactive and assist the advisers with queries as and when they arise.
As a general rule I tend to do ‘business as usual’ work in the morning, the team in London is normally busy preparing, checking and placing trades before our 11 am deadline for trades and then we have cash management (DCM) transfers to check from 11. I will normally have some work to review for advisers over this time, I provide an extra pair of eyes for technical aspects of complicated advice work.
Although I’ve struggled to keep it up of late I try to run around Regent’s park twice a week at lunch time. We’re lucky enough to also have an outdoor public gym on the way back to the office so when I’m feeling particularly motivated I head there post-run. Either after I’ve run or just eating at my desk I normally eat a supermarket salad or something pulled together from last night’s cooking.
Most afternoons I try and focus on project tasks or less day to day type work. Shortly before or after an Investment Committee this will be lots of research into decisions we could look to make or helping the team get our portfolios rebalanced. In normal weeks I could be reviewing notes on new investment theme ideas, working on new system and control developments for DCM or helping the team develop our services with better reporting, more investment options or wider platform access.
Once I’ve ticked off the tasks I needed to do I tend to leave between 5:15 and 6:00. This gets me home for around 7. In the evening I normally make a point of switching off from work and cooking a meal before relaxing for a while and walking the dog.
Reference – BL011 – Aug – 18