Will Connelly

5.58 AM

Alarm anxiety kicks in, so I wake up a few minutes earlier than expected.

6.00 AM

Gym gear on. I grab my towel and step into my crocs and socks combo for a heavy-footed walk down the road to my reformer. I walk into the class and give myself a mental pat on the back – Pilates in the morning is the ultimate cheat code: no heavy lifting on sleepy joints and no mental capacity needed to think through a program. Winning.

7.00 AM

I return home to whip up a quick breakfast - strawberries, blueberries, banana, muesli, and coconut yoghurt – a staple breakfast choice that makes me feel healthier than I actually am. I feel pleasantly full after, but manage to sneak in some peanut butter toast to pull the health dial back on the breakfast. My housemates are heading out for a ride.

7.30 AM

Morning routine essentials begin – shower, shave and sheets. I put on my uniform for the day: socks, trackie shorts and a t-shirt (my corporate WFH look. Collared shirt on standby for important client meetings).

8:30 AM

I walk a few steps away from the base of the bed to my desk – a nice corner office with wardrobe views (thanks COVID). I always start my day with email admin, working from the top down – my client is 2 hours ahead in NZ, so I always have a backlog before I’m awake which always makes my morning very busy. As I make my way down the mail pile, anxiety kicks in: lots to do. I pull out my notebook and begin scribbling down my ‘to do’ list for the day. I check my diary to suss out my engagement for the day; this helps me feel in control of my workload as I mentally note when I’ll be able to do work in between meetings. It also helps me take stock of my availability during the day as ad-hoc meetings and tasks pop up.

9.00 AM

My first meeting of the day is with the internal project team (Director, Manager, Senior Associate and Junior Associate). I use my ‘stand-up’ slide to talk through the previous days progress, today’s objectives and any critical questions, barriers, or dependencies I think need to be discussed. Today’s meeting schedule is particularly intense as I prepare for engagement with Board members of a large energy Distributor in New Zealand.  I’ve been given co-lead for this project, which requires me to prepare for and run these interviews. I’m very nervous.

Following the project stand-up, I individually check-in with the Junior Associate on the team. I spend time discussing today’s goals and activities. It is important that I walk her through illustrative examples of the content to ensure she has a clear understanding of expected outputs by the end of the day. In between meetings, I make more tea, eat more toast and put on a load of washing.

10.00 AM

I dial into my ‘coffee roulette’ (an automated pairing of colleagues across the organisation to meet once a month for relaxed networking over a virtual or in-person coffee) call with AJ, a Director in the Technology Strategy practice at Sapient. We talk about Christmas holidays, work-life balance and my career goals – he provides me great advice and affirmation on my work. His virtual door is open anytime.

12.00 NN

As I go to prepare lunch, I realise there is a Lunch n Learn session scheduled so I dial-in. Lunch n Learn allows me to eat my lunch whilst listening to a TED type talk from one of our senior directors. This session is on Organisational Transformation and has lots of examples of client work which I can leverage in my report. Time well spent.

1.00 PM

I slip into my collared shirt for the meeting with the energy Distributor Board members. After some informal catch-up, I share my screen, begin introducing the work and purpose for today’s workshop. I re-direct some hairy questions to my Senior Manager before powering through the rest of the content.

2.00 PM – 4.00 PM

I finally have some time to smash out some work – the phone isn’t ringing and we have plenty of feedback from the Board member workshop. I write up session notes and contact the Junior Associate to divide and conquer on some actions. There is plenty of work to be done on the PESTEL analysis before we dive into writing problem statements. Similarly, the risk statements require qualitative and quantitative metrics assigned to them in order to evaluate the risk impact of new opportunities.

5.00 PM

I connect with the team at the end of the day to conduct a quick peer-review on one another’s work. We use the share screen function and live documents to track changes in real-time. Today’s progress has been strong and the changes have been implemented in time for a follow-up meeting with the Board members tomorrow. I provide a quick overview of the day to close out the work and align on the next steps for tomorrow.

6.00 PM

I pace around my room, composing my ‘stand-up’ slide for the next day. I address any non-billable emails and work that needs to be completed for the day in preparation for a clean slate tomorrow.

6.30 PM

It’s a Wednesday night, which is family dinner day in my household. Tonight we’re celebrating a few birthdays, so I’ve gone for drinks and met my parents & brothers in the city.

10.00 PM

Bed – set alarm, scroll socials for far too long and eventually fall asleep whilst watching a Christopher Nolan masterpiece.

5.58 AM – next day.

Hit the snooze.