Monique de Courcey

8.20 AM

My alarm goes off I grab my phone to scroll through Facebook as I begin to wake up. By this point my cat knows I’m awake and has arrived to request breakfast. I get a few minutes to wake up before his patience wains and it is breakfast time (for both of us).

8.30 AM

I grab breakfast, today I’m having yogurt and banana bread. One of the benefits of working from home is extra sleep and more time to enjoy my morning. I like to eat my breakfast and get ready while watching a video or listening to a podcast – today it is YouTube.

8.50 AM

I head into my home office/gym/spare room, my desk has evolved over my first 6 months of work as I have learned what works best for me. I log on and start the day by checking my emails, I have quite a few to get through today as I was on leave on last week.

9.00 AM

I open Zoom as I have my first meeting of the day. This morning I have a debrief with one of the Sales Capability Managers and other graduates to go over the DiSC profiles we recently completed. DiSC is a personal assessment tool used to help improve teamwork, communication, and productivity and is just one of the development opportunities provided as part of the graduate program.

10.00 AM

My morning is looking a bit crazy, and it is already time to meet with one of the Senior Product managers to plan an EDM (a form of email marketing) we are developing to promote a webinar series. Whilst our EDMs are produced externally it is my team’s job to provide the project brief which includes all the necessary information and images.

11.10 AM

I take the next 15 minutes to organise the rest of my day. First, I finish checking my emails and replying to emails that I didn’t have a chance to earlier. I then open my Trello Board (a web-based list making application) to update my to-do list for the day.

11.35 AM

Now I have a plan of attach for the day I have a quick a brain break (aka kitty snuggle time) and grab a quick snack. 

11.50 AM

It looks like my major tasks for today all centre around getting all the components for our upcoming webinar ready to send to one of Sanofi’s Multi-Channel Marketing Managers.

12.00 PM

It looks like we have a banner image we can re-use I just need to change some of the wording, I quickly open the production file in Adobe Illustrator to change the wording. I also need to re-size the speaker images in Photoshop to meet the Zoom specification. Now I have all the images I need; I open the Excel briefing document and double check the webinar details and body copy.

12.40 PM

Now I move on to the EDM brief. It is very similar to the Zoom Brief but has requires more details. Like before I make sure all the images meet the specification we were provided with and make any of the needed adjustments in photoshop.

1.00 PM

Time for lunch! As I am currently working from home due to the Covid lockdown I try to spend this time away from my screen to give my eyes a break. Sometimes I go for a walk, but today I opted for a chat with mum. Whilst my work arrangements have always been flexible, I liked to go into the office 1-2 days a week. The highlight for me hands down was the people! Zoom is a great tool, but nothing beats face to face interactions – it’s such a great chance to get to know people outside of my immediate team.

2.00 PM

Some days things don’t go to plan, unfortunately my webcam suddenly died earlier. Thankfully I was able to get a new one delivered, and it just arrived, so I take a few minutes to get it set up.

2.15 PM

I check the agenda for my next meeting. This meeting is a weekly catch up with the entire rare diseases team. I love this meeting as I get to catch up with my entire team. We all update each other on project developments and discuss next steps.

3.30 PM

I am now working with one of the senior product managers to finalise the hero image for the EDM. We aren’t happy with the current image, so I go back to the drawing board on Photoshop. After a lot of trial and error and discussion we decide on a new hero image, and it is time to finalise the briefing document and get it sent off.

5.00 PM

Before I send of the briefing document I quickly mock-up PDF version of what we want the EDM to look by combining different modules from previous EDMs with the finalised images and body copy. Looks like someone wants to help (or his dinner)!

5.30 PM

The last thing I like to do before I finish up is check my emails, to do list and schedule for tomorrow. I still have quite a few emails and Teams messages to respond to but was able to cross a lot of key items off my to do list which is always a great feeling.

6.00 PM

I decide to finish up for the day, after all the work is still going to be there in the morning! After this hectic day relaxing on the couch is very tempting but my bedroom isn’t going to tidy itself.

6.45 PM

I change out of my clothes and enjoy some much-earned relaxation before I sit down to dinner!

7.45 PM

As I skipped my walk today (I didn’t feel like braving the rain), I get ready for a short workout.

 

8.45 PM

Most evenings I like to watch a show with my family (cats included) it’s a great way to get my mind off work and recharge for tomorrow.

10.00 PM

Time to start getting ready for tomorrow. I put on my pyjamas and pick out what I will wear tomorrow before washing my face and brushing my teeth.

10.45 PM

What a day it has been, nearly time for bed, but there is always time for a few extra pats and snuggles. I put my watch on to charge and snuggle up in bed while scrolling through my phone before I set my alarm pull down my eye-mask and catch some z’s.