My location-agnostic PR agency life | Ilona Mosejeva
Hello! I am Ilona Mosejeva, a consultant at Tyto, and this is my location-agnostic life. In this ‘My location-agnostic PR agency life’ series, we want to highlight the freedom our model enables and how we navigate any challenges it presents.
What’s your morning routine?
I usually wake up at 7:20am. Before I do either a 30-min HIIT workout or go for a run, I read the top headlines of the national UK newspapers and indulge in 10 minutes of social media browsing. I am not active on it in my personal life, but each of the channels serves me as an information source and is accustomed to what I am interested in.
A bit before 9am I am by my laptop with a cup of green tea (it is a must!) reading the daily news articles that are suited to my clients and the general tech sector. I block a slot in my diary each day to catch up on the news as this serves as a base for how I manage media relations. To understand how each publication operates, you need to monitor the topics, trends, and what each journalist covers. Of course, the abundance of information is overwhelming, but I find that investing a proportion of time each day helps me to better understand the fields where my clients operate.
How do you organise your day?
My calendar is my guide. I plan everything a few days ahead and spread my to-do’s as blocked slots across the calendar so that no deadlines are missed. In my past life as a journalist and now in PR, the nature of work is that everything is based on deadlines, hence why I find having a structure to my work is vital.
On the other hand, I always leave some wiggle room in case some breaking news happens, so that I have the capacity to jump on urgent issues. Imagine a tower that has flexible beams and a sturdy base – that is what my schedule looks like. I enjoy this pace of work as it suits my personality – I am happy when I am purposefully busy.
When are you the most productive?
From mid-morning to early afternoon, and then from late afternoon/early evening. It all depends on how I slept, to be honest.
What is your favorite workplace?
We are lucky to have a separate room in our London flat which we use as an office space. I prefer to have a minimalistic desk which is not overcrowded with stuff and things. I also prefer to have dead silence; hence I love working from home. When I worked in an open-plan office, I used to listen to MyNoise website. The Japanese garden soundtrack was my top one.
I also sometimes divert to the living room on our wide sofa when the task is more creative, and I need some headspace and changed surroundings.
What’s your favorite thing about working remotely?
I can adjust the space and the sound to how I feel that day, and I can regulate the temperature in the room as I like.
However, the biggest advantage of remote work is that I am not tied to a particular place. I can work from either home or a space which has WIFI. I must say I cannot wait for the lockdown to end – my family and my closest friends are scattered across Europe, and due to remote work I will be able to see them all more often. I am already planning how I will catch a train to Amsterdam and will be able to work from my brother’s flat or how I will be able to visit my parents and grandparents in Lithuania. During the daytime, I can carry on with my work, and then the evenings will be free to share with my beloved ones.
Besides, I am saving on commuting costs, which are quite high in London. I also feel that the time I spent commuting is given back to me. I can go for an evening run or use that time for studying – I can easily go from the office room to a couch in a few seconds and dive into my studies or just read a book uninterrupted. I remember how I read books while waiting for a train or tube, standing on one of London’s many escalators, or while being cramped in the morning train, when your book is the only space between you and another person.
What do you miss about working in an office?
Nothing, really. I enjoy the challenge that remote work presents me with. It means I need to be mindful of my colleagues and that each of us is responsible for the culture we have in our team.
That is why I enjoy random coffee breaks with my co-workers when we wind down, talk about non-work-related topics or just share our thoughts on work-related things. It is important to share all this as honesty and warmth strengthen our relationships. We are here to work on a mutual goal; therefore, I am really happy with how Tyto manages to keep our spirits high.
We also have a social committee which is responsible for our fun activities.
What’s your secret weapon?
For work-related tasks – my calendar with to-do’s slotted across the week.
For mental health – the ability to pop outside for a run and my back garden. I am already growing seedlings on all my windowsills which I will soon replant into the ground outside. In addition, we have quite a few cats in our neighbourhood that patrol the area at exact times each day, various birds including a wood pigeon that keeps returning to our garden (he has a mark on his left eye, so we know it is the same bird), and a few squirrels that reside in two particular trees. It is amazing how much nature there is, and I am happy I can rest my eyes during my breaks while observing them all.
