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A day in the life of

4 min read

My good friend Chris Laughlin over at https://www.thedyslexicdeveloper.com put out a call for what his next blog post should be, I asked him for a run down of his typical day as we have similar titles, but I was sure our day to day would differ a bit due to different companies, experiences, locations etc.

Well, he delivered. Take some time to read his post https://www.thedyslexicdeveloper.com/A-day-in-the-life-of/. Its a great read. Given that I laid down the gauntlet, it was only fair I wrote a post on the topic myself.

My typical day has changed a lot over the last year. I’ve moved from being an engineer on a delivery team to leading a delivery team. I still like to stay close to the code but I’ve got other responsibilities to uphold as well now. Its very different but I like the challenge.

Anyway, on with it.

6.45am

I usually wake around this time when one of two cats jump on the bed looking fed. Here starts my morning grump routine. I’ll have a coffee first thing and catch up on some twitter, tech news and see if anything is on fire in Slack.

We have an office in the US so sometimes things can be reported by our colleagues overnight. Assuming everything is fine, I’ll play with the cats for a while, listen to whatever morning news google assistant throws my way and get ready for work.

9am

Somehow almost two hours pass and find myself powerwalking to the bus stop.

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The bus takes 20mins, I take this time to read emails, look at pull requests and plan out my day in my head. Typically I thinking, “who do I need to catch up with today?”, “what do I need to prepare for meetings?” etc.

On the way to work, I’ll stop by my favourite coffee shop and get my second coffee of the morning. The addiction is real.

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10am

Standup o’clock. We’ll gather round the Jirabox to go through the standard “what we did yesterday”, “what we’ll do today”, “blockers?”, as well as highlighting about anything important or exciting for the day ahead.

10:15am - 12pm

Depending on how my calendar is looking, I’ll be preparing for meetings/workshops, reviewing candidates for hiring, thinking about our current processes, improvements that could be made or if I’m lucky, getting stuck into some tech debt tasks.

Being a team leader means that I no longer can commit to building production features but I do get lots of time to tackle the mountain of tech debt tasks I could never get round to before. Swings and roundabouts. Tech debt helps me stay close to the codebase.

12pm - 2pm

Somewhere in this block of time is lunch. On Mondays, we have catered lunch in the office so we sit together as a company and chat. If its Tuesday, I’ll join the building yoga class on the rooftop in the sun. Some other days I’ll pretend I’m fit and go for a run around the Sydney Opera House. And if it’s Friday, well... Friday lunchtime is reserved for the weekly sacred ceremony, the pub lunch.

2pm - 4pm

Usually a block of time dedicated to catchups with my team, meetings with other teams, and planning. I’ll also be on hand to offer some rubber duck debugging, or architecture advice for my team. When we’re solving hard problems, we like to bounce ideas off each other so it’s good for me to be available during this time.

4pm - 6pm

Code o’clock. Usually meetings are done for the day, I can get my code on! This is my productive time. Headphones in, tunes on, go! I like to smash a few bugs in this time as well as finish any tech debt tasks I may have started in the morning.

6pm - 10pm

Depending on the day, I’ll either be at Samba (drumming) practice, meeting mates for a few jars in the pub or spending time in the kitchen cooking up a storm.

I’ve been known to attempt to cook an elaborate meal on a weekday resulting in 4 hours of cooking and a very late dinner. Totally worth it!

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I’ll try and fit some time for code, podcasts, maybe gym if I’m feeling guilty (probably had burgers for lunch and again for dinner or something).

Quick check of slack to make sure nothing is on fire, then relax!

11pm

Whiskey nightcap and some TV. I’m big into Ray Mears Bushcraft on YouTube at the minute so I’ll watch a low quality, grainy episode or two of that.

12pm

Bed o’clock, ready for that cat wake-up call in less than 7 hours.

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