A Day In the Life of a Full-Time Marketing Designer and a Part-Time Creator

5 Steps I follow to manage to create content on multiple platforms with my 9–6

I work as a junior marketing designer for a software development company. It’s a full-time job that requires me to put in 8–10 hours every day, depending on the nature of the project.

It’s a remote job, so I save a significant time not getting stuck in Bangalore traffic or getting ready. Besides that, I am a content creator and regularly publish on Medium, LinkedIn, and my email newsletter.

My consistency in my side hustles totally depends on how judiciously I use my time. I have been an advocate of productivity, but it takes more than just that to stay sane, and enjoy while managing a full-time job and content creation.

This is what a typical week in my life looks like.

Weekdays: Monday to Friday Plan

My weekdays follow a similar pattern and go faster than my weekends.

My job as a marketing designer is to produce marketing collateral for our clients and in-house campaigns.

I divide my weekday into three categories

Pre-work (7 am–9 am)

I usually start my day around 9ish in the morning, which goes on till 7–8 pm.

I have no fixed time to wake up. Somedays, I wake up at 7 am, or somedays I wake up around 8 am. I need a max of 30 minutes to get ready. Right after, I enjoy a cup of coffee while checking WhatsApp or my emails. Then, I set my agenda for the day and read 2–3 pages of a non-fiction book.

Work (9 am- 7 pm)

I start working by 9.15. My responsibility in the team is to take care of the visual communication of brands online. Most days I design marketing collaterals for clients and our in-house campaigns. When required, I also work on social media strategies and research new concepts for our new projects and clients.

I don’t even realize how fast the day comes to an end with multiple projects and clients. There’s no hard and fast rule about closing time. As soon as I finish my work and meetings, I call it a day.

Post work (after 7.30 pm–11 pm)

I used to mediate in the morning right after waking up, but it was hard to maintain the habit. So I decided to make a change by adding my meditation sessions after work.

Transition Phase

I meditate for 15–30 minutes or do some quick cardio to keep myself moving for the next portion of the day. I call this a Transition Phase. I learned this technique from Deep Work by Cal Newport, where he talks about having a closing statement after work. Instead of having a closing statement, I decided to add a closing activity.

90% of the time, it's meditation, but sometimes it’s playing peekaboo with my dog or a cardio workout. It helps me close all the mental tans about my work and gives me the headspace to function for the remaining time.

I mostly have dinner with my family, and we talk or watch a comedy Bollywood movie around 8.30.

From 9.30–11, I putter, i.e., to do things in a relaxed way, without rushing or trying very hard. I stole the concept from Jeff Bezos’s morning routine. It’s the time when I read a physical book, extend a draft on Medium, or reply to comments on LinkedIn.

Note

No day is the same when you’re working a diverse job. But this is more or less how my day goes on.

When I am working on my personal projects on weekdays, I don’t spend more than 60 minutes to avoid stress and burnout.

Depending on my mood, I either read before calling it a day or watch an episode of Gossip Girl while talking to my friends.

I often get ideas while sleeping or while struggling to sleep. That’s when I use my notes app, which justifies having 400+ ideas and unfinished thoughts on my iPhone.

No matter what day it is, the ideas that come to me are always getting documented. This practice never let me run out of ideas.

Creativity is something you can’t schedule or trap in a box.

Weekends: Saturday and Sunday Plan

This is the time when I get to plan my whole week work-wise and content-wise. I intend to finish all the work by 3 pm every Saturday to go out in the evening with friends, family, or on solo dates. Ever since the lockdown has lifted, I am promptly trying to go out and socialize with people.

To avoid burning out and spend my weekends slogging, I have to make sure that I work smartly and be as efficient as possible.

• I publish an average of 13 articles every month on Medium.
• I post daily on LinkedIn which is 30 posts every month.
• I send out my email newsletter every Sunday.

I try to submit my articles to publication mostly on Sundays after working on them through the weekend.

The System that helps me work efficiently

Having a system for our creative projects keeps the negative emotions entering our workspace and our minds. In one of his interviews, Steven Pressfield talked about how a professional has a system, whereas an amateur does everything on a whim.

Being consistent as a creator with a full-time job means I need to be extra careful with my time, and follow a system that supports me.

When I had no system, I would spend hours after work feeling bad about not posting anything and then doing it haphazardly. It wasn’t cool.

It made me lose my temper multiple times. To overcome it, I had to lay out a simple system that I still use.

“Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win.” — James Clear

1. A Solid Foundation

The foundation of what I do begins with why I do it what I do.

When people don’t know their why the process becomes daunting, it makes you question yourself and your approach. You find yourself asking —

“This is really what I want to do?” or “Maybe I should just chill.”

When you find yourself in that vicious cycle, remind yourself of why you started. As Simon Sinek says

“You have to know WHY you do WHAT you do”.

When I get stuck and find myself struggling, I remind myself why I started my journey as a creator. I didn’t start writing to become a top writer or a millionaire; I started sharing my stories to help people. Knowing the purpose of what I do removes the weight off my shoulders because my outcome is not dependent on the results.

The right mindset is step zero of any project.

If you’re not in the right mind, you won’t be able to do justice to what you do.

Once step zero is done, my system operates on having tons of ideas and never worrying about what to write and post. I have a weird habit of taking notes on my phone all the time.

Wondering about what to write and spending time getting ideas is the luxury I can’t have. It’s not really a high fi tip, but documenting your ideas can give you tons of things to write about.

2. Using Growth Hacking

The metasystem I follow is mostly related to growth hacking and doing smart work. I employ a standard flow of the content that is used in every piece of content I create.

Repurposing content

• If I have to extend this idea and add more personal stories about it, I use it for my weekly newsletter as well. The best lines from the blog and newsletter go on LinkedIn with a CTA.
• From the idea pool that I have already created, I pick ideas that need immediate attention and are based on tropical trends. An idea is first converted into an article and is posted on Medium.

Batch work

• Doing the same thing every day takes more time than doing it once and for all. I have tried and tested it. Batch work really helps in be productive and not worry about what goes out every day on my social media. Every first weekend of the month, I schedule all my LinkedIn posts on Publer as I have done for the month of August in the image below.
• I choose not to schedule my newsletter because it contains the weekly lessons I learn, and it’s a great way to document my week. It’s fun sitting every Sunday morning drafting emails for people who chose to sign up for my email list.

3. Using Technology for Better Use

I am grateful for technology for giving me these opportunities, but I can’t deny the fact that it’s also made me feel like a failure and spend hours doing nothing but scrolling.

I try my best to use technology carefully and not get used by it.

Apart from a scheduling tool, I use other tools that help me be efficient. For example, before I quit Instagram, I used Facebook Business to schedule all my posts. There are plenty of scheduling options in the market.

Apart from Publer, I use Grammarly to avoid making silly mistakes. It doesn’t really help all the time, but it’s still better than nothing.

Even though I am a designer and I love designing, I use Canva whenever I have any personal design requirements. It saves my time, and the templates are good enough for a social media post that will die out in 24 hours.

4. You Can’t Do It All

I have a podcast that I didn’t mention above. I used to post an episode every week from Dec 2019. It was fun at the beginning and a great opportunity for me to connect with some great minds.

But I couldn’t manage it after a certain point. Looking for guests, researching about them, recording and editing the audio, and then promoting became more like a hassle. Initially, I had a couple of interns who were helping me out, but then I started focusing on my writing and took a break from podcasting.

I did the same with YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. When things don’t inspire you like they used to — it’s either time to reinvent or leave. I don’t know for how long I will be away from these channels, but I am clear about my priorities for now.

I am focused on building a writing habit and becoming a better writer. Everything I mentioned above will only work if I learn how to play with words first.

And no matter how hard you try, you can’t do it all. Pick one thing and do it properly before jumping into multiple games. I have been guilty of making that mistake for far too long.

5. Letting My Creativity Flow

Even with all these systems and structures, I give creativity the driver's seat of my content creation because great ideas don’t come when you’re following the rules.

The eureka moments or midnight rambling don’t get unnoticed. If it means recording a quick video when you’re crazily excited for a book you read or doing a women’s day special podcast despite being on a break from podcasting.

When you let creativity take the driver’s seat of your life, you don’t have to think about taking the usual path. It happens at its own pace, and your art can finish in 50X lesser time than it usually takes.

Therefore, I don’t stop my ideas, and I flow with them.

Parting Thoughts

I may have over-explained my life, but if you have the will to create content or to do anything — you have to make it your priority.

I love what I do, and it never feels like I am working. Like Naval says — “ Do what looks like play to you and work for others.”

My content creation makes me a better designer because I know what people want and what’s working in the market. And my marketing job gives me an unfair advantage to become a better creator. It’s mutually beneficial.

As someone who talks about lifestyle design, I have been meticulous about designing my routine so I don’t feel burned out, enjoy every moment, and work on multiple projects.

Our creativity depends on how motivated we are.

And we create our best work when we’re feeling good and having fun.

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