Who: Tanya Ruxton
What: Owner of stationary brand We Are Messengers
Where: Brisbane, Australia

For my day in the life post I’ve chosen a typical Wednesday.

6 am – 7 am

Every morning of the week I have my alarm set to 6 am. So I hit snooze once, then at about 6.15 am I get up and slowly get dressed in to my running gear. I hit the pavement around 6.30am.

7 am – 9 am

I get back from my run, to greet my husband who is generally eating breakfast and watching TV. We have a chat and hang out till it’s time for him to jump on his bike to work. Once he’s out the door, I make sure I am on the computer well before 8am.

I love early morning starts and find I’m most productive at this time of the day.

This is the most important time of day for me because it’s when I prep for the day ahead. I turn on my computer, login to Skype, Twitter, Facebook, and open my inbox to check my email.

I check for any pressing matters and if nothing urgent has arisen, then I turn to my little notebook where I scribble down my To Do list for the day.

9 am – 2 pm

I’m off and racing! Generally I like to start off with a Twitter update and if I have anything bookmarked to post on my blog then I will get that out of the way. From here it’s a matter of sorting through my to do list in order of highest priority.

• Respond to emails – tick
• Design – make updates to any current jobs based on clients feedback – tick
• Photographer arrives to do photo shoot of products – tick
• Email off work to clients for approval – tick
• Organise quotations with printers for any new print jobs – tick
• Plan upcoming marketing for new products – tick
• Design adverts for new products – tick
• Write content for ‘The Good News’ Enewsletter and prepare to send – tick
• Run through To Do list and update – tick
• Pack new orders and prepare for postage – tick
• Lunch – tick

A lot of my time at present is spent on the business side of things, in particular PR and Marketing. On top of this, there is the general admin side of things which I like to stay on top of.

A small percentage of my time is also spent on research and development, checking out the most up to date information in the graphic design world, interesting links and articles, especially anything typography based.

2 pm – 4 pm

Our house turns in to a sauna at about 2pm so this is when I lunch. I also use this time to head to post office to send off any orders, run any other errands and generally just hunting for things to do in air conditioned shops.

4 pm – 6 pm

Back at the desk tidying up my day, finishing off anything that I didn’t get to complete earlier and also checking out www.taste.com.au for dinner ideas. mmm.

6 pm – 7 pm

At this point I’m preparing dinner and waiting for hubby to arrive home. I turn on the TV for a bit of down time.

7 pm – 9.30 pm

The evening is a lot cooler for printing, so I run into the studio to prep for some work. Depending on what stock I have will be dependant upon what I will be printing. I may do a few runs of different cards that are running low.

Once I’ve printed these, I wash up my screens and ink. I then go through the newly printed cards checking quality and removing any bad prints. I then do a final stock count and make a note of this in my inventory.

I close up and turn my computer off for the day, I might even do one last check of Twitter to see what everyone has been saying. Then it’s ice cream time, or a simple cup of tea before bed.

(Ed’s note: post first published 19/01/2010)