Beep beep beep – the alarm clock is ringing. It is 07:30 AM on a Monday. Quite a privileged time to get up, if the job allows it and there are no children yet. The first steps are directly to the living room, to wish Elmo a good morning. He is happy and wildly wags his tail. Next point on the list is switching on the coffee machine, then the bathroom (we all know what happens there) and once that’s finished I drink my coffee in peace.

I developed a routine, which is probably why my mornings are calm – or maybe it is a rule: firstly, taking care of myself and secondly, taking care of the clients. Meaning, I will get ready without stressing myself, drink my coffee and go for a walk with Elmo. Then I’m awake and open my Laptop to reply to the first mails of the day. This routine has proven itself to me and makes me start my day in a calm manner.

After I answered the first inquiries and everyone is taken care of, I will have my first light breakfast – which is usually yogurt, fruits, and granola.
Once I’m fed I turn towards planning my day. I’m opening my calendar to check my appointments and my To-Do list to see which deadlines are coming close and what is awaiting me in general.

If time allows it I try to immediately tackle the tasks that demand concentration, such as writing proposals, conducting quality assurance, preparing presentations, and all the other activities a Corporate Creative has to do.

With this position I am responsible for ensuring that all creative tasks coming up for internal projects are either handled by myself or a designer from our network. Some of these tasks are: Development of ideas, creating wireframes, building templates for social media, researching and, if necessary, creating visual content for our blog and initiative VAST GREEN, and making sure of the recognisability of our whole VAST GROUP.

That’s my morning, if it goes smoothly.

PS: No shame! Naturally my mornings are also chaotic from time to time. There’s times where I sit in front of my laptop in PJ’s while stuffing a nougat creme toast in my face.

Another vital part of my routine is that I always try to take a break of an hour at 1 PM. The reasons are twofold, on the one hand we have the fact that my head is steaming and I just need a break. On the other hand Elmo is already eagerly waiting to, well, have a bowel movement. And he is the kind of dog who likes to communicate his needs vocally.

Therefore, I take my dog and try to get at least 30-45 minutes of fresh air. This is the time I like to listen to music or a podcast and just let my soul rest a little. Once back home I have my second, bigger breakfast or a small lunch. Usually leftovers from the night before.

If there’s still time left I like to do some household chores, doing the laundry, cleaning up around the apartment. Somehow this also helps me to calm down and relax.

At 2 PM sharp we have our Monday chat. At VAST FORWARD, the Monday chat replaces the after-weekend chat in the coffee kitchen. Our team meets virtually and we exchange our highs and lows from the past two days.

This time, I talked about my family’s spring celebration. My whole family met close to Hanover to spend a weekend together. We had a barbecue, we laughed, and enjoyed our time together. There were no lows for me last weekend. During the Monday chat, private stuff has priority, which I enjoy a lot because, despite distances, it allows our team to be close.

Since the whole VAST FORWARD team lives in different places, we need fixed appointments where we can meet. The Monday chat is one of a series of fixed appointments, like our communications-meeting on Tuesdays, our project-status every three weeks on Wednesdays, digital-co-working on Thursdays and the check-out on Fridays.
After the chat, we meet every two weeks for our acquisition-meeting. Here we discuss in smaller groups whether there is a need for acquisition at the moment, if we should reintroduce ourselves personally to certain clients or if there are any new exciting agencies we want to approach. All of this is based on our client-list, which we go through together.

Once the meetings are done I check my mailbox: Are there new requests? Any emergencies? Does someone need help?

At times I do feel like a firefighter, who is ready each day to put out fires. The diversity makes my job really interesting!

I’m working on a new request for a banner campaign: I talk to developers from our network and calculate costs and time schedules to send them back to the clients. Afterwards we have a kick-off-appointment with a new client. He wants a relaunch of his website. I open Google meet, invite him into the virtual conference room and say “Nice, we finally get to meet!”. We discuss the demands of his new website and collect the results on a virtual whiteboard. Defining requirements is incredibly important, only then am I able to assemble a fitting project team and make a professional offer.

Phew. I notice how my head begins to steam again and decide to take a short break on the couch.

Back to the office I’m sitting down to dedicate my last hour of the day to the testing of a website.

For this, I open the development environment (where our customer websites are password-protected as long as they are not yet live) and also the feedback table. Then, I go through the website page by page. I test all modules in structure and functionality. I test all forms of the website, check if error messages are displayed, and if the mailings really arrive. Meaning: The website is thoroughly tested by me. Anything that doesn’t fit, I enter into a table and notify the responsible developer for any adjustments.

My slack is ringing. My colleague and sister Jenny is calling. She has a question about a project. We have a quick chat and wish ourselves a good night.

It feels good to work with a great team every day. I’m looking forward to tomorrow!