The way I work in May/21

It seems to me that, as we evolve as professionals, we tend to work more. It’s a sum of demand and capacity. Certainly, there will be a time in my life in which I’ll reduce the amount of work and the velocity of the deliveries. But not now.

As a part of my reflection about work, I decided to register how I work today, which changed so much in the middle of a pandemic. Maybe it can be useful for someone else.

Before COVID-19 and the birth of my son, I used to work from around 9 am to 6:30 pm in the office plus extra hours in the evening and weekends. For the first months of my son's life, I reduced the number of extra hours considerably. And since March/21 I got back to it. I also have to interact with him a lot throughout the day since we don't have a nanny and we weren't able to count on a daycare. So I'm used to working at night after I put him in bed.

As I analyze my daily tasks, I notice that much of my work activities flow through digital tools. That’s the way it will be displayed in this post: type of task and digital tools used to make things work.

It’s good to register that I’m working from home since March/20 with very few meetings in physical offices. I’ve noticed especially through social media comments that this seems to be one of the main reasons for work disturbance, from lack of focus to burnout. I guess we all react to work contingencies in our own ways and such a new and unusual event becomes a reference for the normal problems that we already faced. But of course, it can make everything worse if we don’t keep our minds in the best place. As I write this text, I’m looking to register also the way I’m dealing with the pandemic.

I start with multitasking since nowadays I work on different fronts. I manage a sales team as well as perform sales activities constantly. I also lead a marketing team and perform marketing activities. I act as Product Owner in different projects and, at last, I help manage my company with the help of my fellow managers and directors. To keep everything running the best way I can, I use Trello. I have columns for each type of activity (Sales, Marketing, and Company), a column for the day activities, and one for activities done. At the end of each day, I sum the activities up in a card and present them to the team on the next day. I archive everything in “done” and start again. This structure is helping me understand which kind of activity is taking more of my time. Besides the labeling types of activities, I have labels for third-party activities (to keep track of them), high priority (urgent), and personal ones.

My (blurred) tasks registered in Trello.

A great part of my work is related to research: competitors, prospects, clients satisfaction, market numbers. To check the energy market I read every day in the morning the newsletters from Brasil Energia, Electric Energy Online, and Daily Bids (Canada). I also follow the newsletters from Wunderman Thompson, Boston Consulting Group, Agile Alliance, Bain & Company, The Generalist, Tim Ferris, GovLab Data Stewards, and Berkeley Lab News. Podcasts and books complete the list. They come like waves. Before my son was born, I used to have yearly book reading goals. It was around 45 a year. Since 2020, the number fell a lot. But I keep reading as much as I’m able.

Of course, I use Google a lot for my researches. Really, a lot. To research customer satisfaction, GoogleForms is a winner nowadays.

For CRM activities on my sales daily basis, I use SMark, a Brazilian platform. There I’m able to keep track of previous prospect contacts, commercial proposals, messages exchanged, etc. We used to work with goals for first contacts and presentation meetings, but the automation of some processes reduced the results demand dynamic.

Planning plays a great part in my work. I’m constantly looking for ways to build the best strategies. For that, I use Notion, Trello, and Google Calendar. Notion is a big deal for me. I got used to registering my thoughts with the different templates that it offers and enhancing my analytical view capacity. On the other hand, Google Calendar is a blessing for remembering as much as I can register in it, work-related or not.

My Notion workspace for registering my different study topics.

Remember, remember.

Documentation goes hand in hand with the planning activities. Notion was already mentioned, but I also use Bear and Confluence. Bear is my personal assistant. I signed it for the multi-platform feature (write on desktop or phone), but I get so much more of it. It changed my life for the better. At my company, we also signed Confluence, which has integration features with other tools we use and serves as the documentation pillar of our software solutions.

Organizing life with Bear.

For communication, I use a lot of tools, since it plays a very strategic part in my work activities. Email is still at the top of the list. I’m capable of sending 20 emails or more per day (to different people, of course). I guess this is a reflection of multitasking. But I try to keep messages short. We use Slack (free version) at the company, but I tend to mute the majority of channels since it is more used by the engineering teams. I’ve been using Notion a lot to share research contents and plans with the teams.

To communicate with the market, we use Ramper (acquiring leads), RD Station (communicating with clients and leads through email marketing), and the most traditional social media platforms, like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

My design activities involve dealing with Illustrator, Photoshop, and PowerPoint. I learned to work with Figma also this year, but, since my graphic design efforts are solo, I keep using the traditional tools. I sign Adobe Creative Cloud (great service, by the way).

For video recording, editing, and publishing, I use Camtasia and YouTube. I bought a license from Camtasia for screen recording years ago and it still suits me. Its only (and huge) problem to have separate file formats between Windows and Mac is horrible, but it’s a good editing tool.

Finally, for keeping together throughout these curious times, studying helps a lot. I’m quite curious, so I’m always trying to learn new things and this feeling of moving ahead with knowledge helps to keep the head in the right place. Udemy helps me for some years with that. I used it to study for me PMI-ACP certification and used it to learn about programming, design, Figma, Jira, Customer Success, and different other topics. Two months ago, my company signed Alura, a Brazilian learning platform. It’s been great. They have series of small courses and I’ve been able to finish 52 between April 5th and May 8th.

I also insist on maintaining my exercise schedule. Taking care of the baby without external help made that a lot harder and, eventually, I skip a day. But running and biking make a huge difference in my mental health. I tend to alternate the activities daily to avoid the high impacts that running does on my body since I normally run 10k every time.

But my family is my greater source of mental stability. They are the reason I wake up willing and able every day.

I hope you could get something positive from this register. Being able and healthy to work is a great gift. Having the capacity to create and face the challenges of productive life are good ways of spending time. It may be hard for you with the changes brought by the pandemic. But I hope you keep strong through the hard times. I'm rooting for you.