Welcome to the latest installment in our series on the “Day in the Life” of nonprofit communicators! This series lets you describe your workday in your own words.
Ashirbad’s Bio:
My name is Ashirbad and I direct the communication vertical of the India team of a research group called the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago in New Delhi.
Since the pandemic spread it’s tentacles, we have been working from home. While there are challenges but the time lost in travelling to work (in my case it’s 3hrs everyday) seems like a huge gain and I generally try to use those hours to learn from how other research organisations are telling their stories.
I work with four team members spread across different geographies in India so even in a pre COVID world, a chunk of our coordination would happen via phone/chat so that way, not much has changed. Just that with the evolving nature of work and almost every bit of work going digital, seems like there is an urgent need to adapt, learn and rewire our storytelling strategies. It increasingly looks like we are at the dawn of a new world!
You can find me on Twitter @AshirbadRaha.
Before 8:00 a.m.
Finish morning rituals, check mailbox once
8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m
Eat a good breakfast and then start with responding to urgent emails and sketching out the top three “to-do” of the day.
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
This is the most productive slot. My mind is operating at near 100% in the morning hours so I finish any writing or content/video review tasks during this hour. And then the next is series of follow up emails with the team members and reviewing the traction that our social media handles might have got when we were asleep.
12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m
This is primarily about wrapping up the priority number 1 task of the day.
Lunch time is just about food – away from work.
2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m
This is the time for any calls/WhatsApp chat with team members about smaller roadblocks and finishing task number 2 and 3 of the day. Once done, the focus is to plan out to-dos for myself and team for the next day.
This is also the time for spotting/scanning some best practices from the sector which can then be incorporated into our organisational work. There is so much out there to learn and adapt!
After 4:00 p.m.
I have been working from home since the pandemic started gripping my city – New Delhi, India. It’s been three months now. My work day generally gets over at 4:30pm but I do get back to my computer once at 9:30 pm to address any urgent emails that may have come in from team that works in a different time zone.
Thanks for sharing, Ashirbad!
And if you would like to share your quarantined day now, just fill out the form below:
Can’t see the form? Try this.
