My location-agnostic PR agency life | Justus Meuzelaar
Hello! I am Justus, a Consultant at Tyto and this is my location-agnostic life. In this series, we want to highlight the freedom our PRWithoutBorders™ model enables and how we navigate any challenges it presents.
What’s your morning routine?
First, I have breakfast with my wife and daughter, then take my daughter to day care, make myself a cup of tea and start work. I would love to say that I have a very interesting morning, but it is mostly practical!
How do you organise your day?
I usually start out by checking my e-mail and Slack to see if the to-do list I made at the end of the previous day needs adjusting, catch up on the daily news and then I get started. I like to make sure that I have a clear view of what must be done that day, the “nice to haves” and which reminders I need to send out to the people I work with so we don’t miss deadlines.
When are you the most productive?
I like busy days; they give me a very clear focus on what needs to be done, when and help prioritise my to-do’s. I usually concentrate on bigger tasks at the start of the day and use the last part of the day to finish up several smaller tasks.
What is your favourite workplace?
It depends on the task at hand. For productivity, I definitely prefer my home office. It enables me to focus and control all important factors in the environment I work in, like the temperature and music.
For brainstorming, learning and bouncing ideas of my colleagues, I like to meet up with them in an office in my hometown, in the Randstad area. It’s only a five-minute bike ride for me to get to the office, so I can be very flexible when I’m going there. This enables me to take on more tasks at home in the morning and then later head into the office for a brainstorming session in the afternoon.
What’s your favourite thing about working remotely?
I think working remotely is all about flexibility. You can choose any location you want to work in, which gives people who like to travel the chance to work in all kinds of interesting locations. I’m not much of a globetrotter myself, but with our young daughter, the flexibility of working remotely is really valuable to me. I can take my daughter to daycare and take the time to wish her a great day without the pressure of beating traffic.
It also means it’s much easier for my wife and I to handle the unexpected circumstances that sometimes come up when you have children. Not having a commute, besides the occasional five-minute bike ride, also means we’re always able to have dinner as a family.
What do you miss about working in an office?
Birthday cake! When I worked in a large office, we would have birthday cake probably every week. I’m probably much better off (and healthier!) without the inevitable sugar crash though.
Besides, Tyto often sends us thoughtful gifts and treats around work anniversaries, Christmas and other occasions. And if I must have a treat, I can always meet up with my colleagues for a chat and a stroopwafel.
What’s your secret weapon?
My number one secret weapon must stay, well, a secret. But, besides that, I think it helps to be curious and driven to learn something new. The topics that matter to our clients can be quite complex but are almost always interesting. I like to take a deep dive and often find myself reading up on technologies and solutions, way beyond what is needed for just doing my job. It always gives me ideas and I feel that clients appreciate it when you show genuine (researched) interest. It also helps to bring their attention to topics they hadn’t previously considered.
What is the culture like at Tyto?
Tyto brings together a group of people who all choose to work with our remote model for many different reasons. While this comes with a lot of liberties, it actually translates into everyone feeling very responsible for their work and clients and being dedicated to doing the best work they can, which is very inspiring.
What do you like most about working at Tyto?
Having the chance to work with awesome clients and to learn from some of the smartest communications people all over Europe. It’s so interesting to see the differences in approaches and cultures within our team, which always makes for great discussions and helps with creative approaches to our work. Also, I loved Hackweek, where we got together with the whole team. It was so nice to meet up with everyone and it proved that despite our differences in the location we work in throughout Europe, we still have so much in common.
