A Day in the life of: Vincent Baldry
By Vincent Baldry (Technical and Creative Director)
Hi, I’m Vince and this blog is about a typical day for me at Brightlink.
So, to give you a bit of background about me, I am a Veteran, after leaving school I Joined the Royal Air Force and served for 13 years. After leaving the RAF my career has seen me work in Aerospace, Steel, Further Education and Manufacturing sectors. One of my main mantras Is to always keep learning, whether formally or just researching stuff that interests me. You never know where the things you learn will take you or when they may become useful. I am now Technical and Creative Director of our family owned business. My wife is the CEO and Brightlink was her brainchild and I am immensely proud of her.
So here we go…
06:00
Most weekdays I wake at 6:00am, but I can maybe lay in until 7:00am. I am a morning person and I am most productive early in the day.
I am normally up first in the house and It allows me to get ready, have some time to gather my thoughts and do a bit of tidying before the working day starts.
08:30
First task of today is participating in the online tutors meeting. This in an opportunity for us as a team to have a catchup on how things are going. I am not always in the meeting, but I find it useful to be in it sometimes, so the team can be updated on any new technology updates, also so they can give me any issues they have for me to investigate. As we are a remote team, I do not see most people regularly so it’s good to speak via the video conferencing which can be easier for somethings than emails.
09:30
Meeting is over and its time to get into things.
I can have a range of tasks, covering 2 main areas.
- Technology – I do things such as website and server maintenance and upgrades, uploading content to the website, helping learners and our team with technical issues, looking forward to where our technology goes next, and how this impacts the business and how we need to develop in the future.
- Creativity – I get to do creative things such as designing flyers, journal adverts, creating films.
What I love is that things never sit still, technology is always changing, and I find it exciting to see what is on the horizon although it can give me a headache when trying to work out how to implement it.
The joy of working in a home office is that the working time is flexible so although I try to keep to a reasonable routine, I can start when needed and finish when needed and can also have breaks to fit in other commitments or to just do some fun stuff with the family.
So for today I have a number of things to do including a CILEx Unit update and some development work on our new SharePoint site.
For these types of tasks, I tend to isolate myself from the world so I can concentrate. I will pop on a set of headphones, open YouTube and get some music playing.
12:00
A quick spot of lunch outside in the back garden then it’s back to work.
12:30
So another few hours work on my main tasks for the day, when doing development work I tend to have a lot of ideas as I go, so sometimes I start with a rough plan in mind where I think it may go, but by the end of the day I may be in a totally different place as an idea grabs me and I run with it. It is a double-edged sword as some amazing ideas can appear, but then it can take me off track from my original plan.
16:00
So, another end to my working day (well not really, having your own business means it never really stops). As I am the first to stop working today it’s time to get on top of some of the house chores. Washing machine, tumble dryer and dishwasher change then onto start cooking this evenings meal.
As a family we are a team in both business and home life. We share our responsibilities for both the business and maintaining the family home.
18:00
Mealtime, a really nice time for all us as a family to sit around the dining table and talk about our days or what’s happening in the next few days.
19:00
Now its family time. We have some recorded TV to catchup on, chatting, and having a laugh.
As it’s the weekend we chat about things we want to do as a family tomorrow. We have a holiday coming up soon and we talk about plans for getting ready to go and what we will do when we are there.
22:00
As I am an early riser, I am on my last legs and am ready for bed most nights by now.
I need a good 7 to 8 hours of sleep so it’s a goodnight from me.