A Day in the Life of Digital Director
Most days start somewhere between 7:00 and 7:30am, depending on where I need to be that day.
The first thing I do is make a green tea and turn on Channel 7 news. It’s mostly background noise, but it gives me a quick sense of what’s happening in the world. While the news is on, I check overnight Teams messages and email. Working across teams and time zones means things often move while I’m asleep.
From there I open Feedly, which is where I keep a curated list of sources I follow. Over time I’ve organised them into folders that loosely mirror the things I care about and the work we do, things like: Branding & Design, Web Development, Tech, AI, Salesforce, Hosting, Membership and Fundraising, along with broader topics like News, Projects & Leadership, Health, Elearning, and Environment. There are also a few lighter folders like Lifehacker, Entertainment & Gaming, and one simply called FUN for memes and internet nonsense.
The goal isn’t to read everything – that would be impossible.
Instead I scan headlines and tag things as I go. Some articles get marked read later so I can properly digest them. Some get shared with team members if they’re relevant to the work they’re doing. Others get tagged simply because I know the topic will come up at some point and it’ll be useful to have something ready – I can’t read everything, but knowing I’ve seen something before and can find it again makes me feel prepared.
Once I’ve got a bit of context for the day ahead, I get ready and head out.
The Commute (or the Transition)
What happens next depends on where I’m working that day.
Some days I’m heading onsite, which means a drive. When that happens I usually open Headway and try to cram a book or two on the way. It’s a quick way to absorb ideas without needing hours to read. I’ll share the books that have stuck with me most in another article.
If I’m on the Metro, the time tends to look a bit different. That’s usually when I open up a conversation with AI and work through the bigger or messier situations, the ones that need thinking rather than reacting. Sometimes it’s about how to handle something in the team, sometimes it’s about strategy, and sometimes it turns into deep research on topics that matter to the growth of our business.
A lot of this time ends up being about personal and professional development, reflecting on how things are going, what could be done better, and what strategies might help the team and the business move forward. Part of me is always on a quest for learning and growth, so this time is genuinely energising. It’s also a small moment of self-care in the day, time to think, reset, and remind myself that the goal isn’t just to do more work, but to do better work and do work better.
If I’m working from home, the commute disappears. What I gain instead is a few extra minutes to breathe, settle in, and get a head start on the backlog before the day properly begins.
However it happens, that small transition between morning context and the workday is often where the first real thinking of the day happens.
The Workday
The day itself is usually a thick combination of meetings, backlog work, and interruptions.
Some interruptions are easy to deal with. Others completely reshape the day. A quick question can turn into a design discussion. A small issue can uncover something bigger. And sometimes something urgent lands that simply wasn’t part of the plan.
Part of my day is also spent quickly scanning our operational systems – forecasts, Harvest time logs, Salesforce opportunities, logs in client websites, partnership systems, and overnight system notices. It’s not something that takes hours, but it does require an experienced eye. Moving quickly through the data helps surface the things that are important or urgent, before they become bigger problems.
Every day we need to understand what we might have missed overnight and what needs to be dealt with in more real time. Doing that often uncovers a wealth of issues, each of which could easily consume the entire day if you let it. Each one needs a different response.
- Some need quick intervention.
- Some need delegation.
- Some just need a nudge to keep moving.
- And some need to be deprioritised.
The challenge is not getting stuck on a single issue.
Most days already have six or more hours of meetings scheduled, often back to back. Working from home has made calendars feel infinitely available. Some meetings I know about and have planned for. Others get slipped in without much conversation. And occasionally a client books time assuming I must be available.
All of those meetings need responses, planning, and preparation.
My calendar is usually a week or two out, and most of the available spaces are already earmarked for the work of that week. When something urgent appears, it usually means something else has to move further down the road – That’s just the reality of limited time.
I once read about East African runners using a term that sounded like korokruch – settling into a rhythm where pace, breathing and effort align. The point isn’t to sprint the whole run. It’s to find a sustainable cadence and hold it. I try to apply the same thinking to my week. Instead of reacting to everything immediately, I create rhythm in the calendar, regular spaces for certain conversations, decisions and reviews. When people know those moments exist, they can park non-urgent issues until then and raise them when I’m ready to receive them. It helps keep the week moving without everything becoming urgent.
A good day is about eight or nine hours of solid work, often with barely enough time to stop and breathe. If I’m lucky I’ll get a chance to buy or heat up lunch and eat it at my desk – And even then, there’s usually more waiting for tomorrow.
The Evening Switch
Most days I aim to finish around 6pm so I can flip the switch and spend time with family, Some days cooperate – Other days I pause around 7pm, knowing I’ll be back later.
My wife works a later shift and usually gets home around 7:30pm. We’ve recently started carb cycling, which means dinner is less spontaneous than it used to be. When I stop work it’s usually straight into the kitchen, cooking dinner and often preparing the next day’s lunch at the same time.
When she gets home we eat together, usually with a glass of wine, and take a moment to decompress.
The Quiet Hours
After dinner, while my wife settles in to relax in front of the TV, I often head back to work.
On the good days, this is the best part of the day. It’s when I get time to think, planning, writing down points of view, researching ideas, or working on development projects we’ve been wanting to explore – On the bad days, it’s simply catching up on work that never quite finished earlier … Sometimes those days feel like they never really end.
Switching Off
When we can, we wind down together with a sitcom, drama or reality show, before inevitably flicking over to YouTube Shorts for a few minutes. My algorithm is mostly tuned for laughs, which is probably exactly what I need at that point in the day. Before bed I do one last sweep of messages and notifications, just to make sure nothing urgent has been missed.
Then it’s time to reset and start again tomorrow.
Wrapping Up
I know that all sounds like a lot, and sometimes it is. But I get to do work I genuinely enjoy, with organisations that truly deserve it and appreciate it. At AlphaSys, we focus on for-purpose organisations, and the impact they make is critical to the world we live in. I can’t do what they do. But I can make it easier for them to do it – and to do it better.