My location-agnostic PR agency life | Borja Iglesias

Hello! I am Borja Iglesias, Digital Strategy Lead at Tyto, and this is my location-agnostic life. In this series, we want to highlight the freedom our location-agnostic model enables and how we navigate any challenges it presents.

What’s your morning routine?

I am not a morning person. Basically, I get up, take a shower, have breakfast and get to work. I am incapable of doing sport first thing in the morning – in fact, I would say I am incapable of doing it before 12pm. When I finish work in the afternoons is when I exercise, study other languages, do training courses…

How do you organise your day?

As I have a hard time getting started, first thing in the morning I can’t focus on complex tasks, so I check my email and Slack and organise my day. I’m a to-do list addict and, despite being a digital marketing expert, I have to admit that I always need to have with me a notebook where I write down my to-dos by hand. As soon as my brain has booted up, I can get down to the tasks of the day, from leading Tyto’s marketing to advising our clients on their digital strategy or extracting insights for our clients or potential clients.

When are you the most productive?

From mid-morning until lunchtime and in the evenings.

What is your favourite workplace?

My home office. It has the ideal conditions to work at ease.

What’s your favourite thing about working remotely?

I am a strong advocate of flexibility at work. I don’t want to be forced to work in an office whether it’s one or five days a week because I don’t consider that I am more productive in an office. I actually work better at home so I prefer to have the freedom to choose where I work at any given time. Tyto’s model allows me to work from home on a daily basis but, if I want to, I have the option to work in a coworking space or from a coffee shop, if I want a change of environment. One of the great advantages of our location-agnostic model is that I can work wherever I travel. This has allowed me to work from my hometown for several weeks this year and enjoy quality time with family and friends. Previously, I would only get to spend some days of holidays per year with them.

Besides, the good thing about working from home is that I don’t waste time commuting. At the end of the year I have saved hundreds of hours that I can spend on whatever I want, from sports to reading.

Working remotely also allows me to create the working environment I want. In my office I can regulate the temperature and humidity, decide whether I want to listen to music and which one… I adapt the environment to my needs.

What do you miss about working in an office?

The spontaneous chats and the fun meal times with my colleagues. Working remotely can make you lose the social side of working in an office, but at Tyto we have initiatives that allow us to generate those moments of relaxed chat, they just aren’t spontaneous. We have coffee chats, virtual lunches, virtual drinks… that compensate in a way for that need to interact with your colleagues. I have friendships with colleagues I’ve never seen in person because we live in different countries.

What’s your secret weapon?

Sport. One of the biggest risks of working from home is a more sedentary lifestyle. Going to the gym or for a run when I log off helps me to switch off mentally and relax.

When I am working, my secret weapon is coffee. Black, no sugar.