A little while back, I met up with some of the parents from school for a drink and after the usual chit chat about the children a couple of them asked what it is that my job entails on a day-to-day basis.
This week my eldest daughter Florence also probed me a bit more on our car journey home from school beyond ‘drink coffee and talk about money’ to ask what it is that I do after I have dropped her off at school.
Maybe you are also interested in what it is that I do beyond our conversations and meetings too. So to remove the mystery, I am going to try and describe for you what a regular working week might look like and some of the things that I do.
Before I get into each day, here is a list of things that tend to happen daily:
• Responding to emails and phone calls
• Research – whether that be reading or analysis of markets, products or new technology
• Keeping up with the news, current affairs and financial markets
• Reading to ensure continuous learning
• Exercise – this could be a walk, run, swim or time in the gym. Whilst it is good for my health to keep active, it also allows time to digest thoughts and create new ideas.
Monday tends to be a somewhat slower paced day, partly to ease into the week and partly to recover from the usually tiring weekends. I tend to work from home rather than the office and the mornings are most often used to check in with workload and plans for the week as well as an accountability call/catch up with a fellow financial planner running their business elsewhere in the country. Afternoons will then either involve some form of meeting(s) or trying to work on something related to the business. Recently I have being trying to take provider meetings such as from product or software providers on this day so as not to interfere with the rest of the week.
Tuesdays are always shorter working days for me as I do the school pick up and take the girls to dancing class. Therefore, it would normally only have a couple of meetings (usually with existing clients) with time to also focus on one piece of specific client work such as preparing for or following up from meetings, updating forecasts or doing some product comparisons.
Wednesdays rotate between being shorter days and longer days depending on whether my wife is at work. I either need to do the school pick up which means it follows along the lines of Tuesday, or I use it as a longer working day with the ability to work and have meetings into the early evening. This is often the day where if a longer piece of specific work needs undertaking such as analysis of a client’s strategy or complex comparisons of products are required it gets done on this day.
Thursdays is what I consider to be an ‘everything day’, by which I mean it involves both meetings and time to focus on specific work but is normally done within regular working hours. This tends to be the most productive day of the week.
Fridays go one of two ways – a full day of meetings because that is when people can/want to meet, or a day of catching up and working on specific client projects. When other people are thinking of leaving early, I tend to work slightly later because the girls have their swimming lessons and therefore aren’t home until slightly later. People also tend to assume that I have finished for the day a bit earlier and so if I am not in meetings then I tend to be undisturbed and can be productive.
Production