Our comms assistant Laura joined the team following a successful work experience placement in early 2021. Here, she walks us through how she juggles life as a Sorted team member with her various musical pursuits.
I’ve been working as Sorted’s communications assistant officially since March 2021. The reason I say ‘officially’ is that I actually started working at Sorted in February 2021, on a four-week work experience placement. At the end of the placement, I happily accepted a job offer and the rest (as they say) is history.
My role involves delivering the marketing strategy for Sorted, including managing our social media platforms and sending out press releases, as well as completing various communications tasks for our clients. A typical day might see me writing social content, creating graphics, editing videos for YouTube, formatting PowerPoint presentations, working up spreadsheets, or anything else (even tangentially) comms-related. Each day is different, and that’s one of my favourite things about the job.
I am no use to man nor beast without caffeine, so my day always begins with at least two cups of coffee. I tend to start the day by scrolling through emails and checking my work overview on monday.com (our task management system) to see what deadlines I have coming up and what I need to get done that day.
Client work takes top priority of course, so I try and get that boxed off in the mornings when my caffeine-fuelled brain is, more or less, firing on all cylinders.
The afternoons are reserved for more creative work, which is what I particularly enjoy doing. I find it’s a nice chilled way to finish up the day. (Yes, that was an unintentional rhyme – my creative writing degree has its uses!).
Of course, there are often days where I’ve got way more stuff to get through than I can finish and everything’s due by yesterday, and on those days my afternoons are rather less ‘creative and chilled’ and more ‘frantic and panicked’, but that’s just the nature of the comms world. Luckily, the ‘creative and chilled’ afternoons are more frequent!
I like to have music playing while I work, as it keeps me focused and less distracted by noises of the neighbours and my family trying (and mostly succeeding) to be quiet as they leave for and come back from work. I try not to have anything too energetic, as I’m then in danger of singing along like I’m at Wembley and not in my home office with deadlines to meet.
To stay on top of everything, I make lists – many lists. Aren’t lists a wonderful invention? I’m a bit of a recent convert, to tell the truth, as for a while I relied a little too heavily on my brain’s capacity to simply remember everything and never wrote anything down. Needless to say, this proved to be a pretty unreliable method (particularly as a large part of my brain is already occupied by musical theatre lyrics and errant story ideas). Now, lists are my friend. I keep everything in a thick notebook and colour-code tasks into marketing work and communications work. This helps me stay organised and keep on top of everything, and also gives me the satisfaction of ticking things off when they’re done. It’s the best.
My love for lists aside, another good thing about working for Sorted is the flexible working pattern. Having control over when I start and finish my day has been really freeing; if I want to finish a little earlier because I’ve got everything done, I can do that, and if I want to start a little later because I’ve stayed up too late the night before watching Netflix, I can do that too (…though I try not to make a habit of that).
Having worked some very tedious jobs before starting at Sorted Communications, I really love the variety and flexibility of the work I do now. I also really like that I can fit work around me, rather than the other way around. That work-life balance can be an elusive so-and-so at times, but nowadays the scales are tilted much more in my favour.
To find out more about our team and how we work, contact us today.
Meet Laura: comms assistant, serial hobbyist
Our comms assistant Laura joined the team following a successful work experience placement in early 2021. Here, she walks us through how she juggles life as a Sorted team member with her various musical pursuits.
My role involves delivering the marketing strategy for Sorted, including managing our social media platforms and sending out press releases, as well as completing various communications tasks for our clients. A typical day might see me writing social content, creating graphics, editing videos for YouTube, formatting PowerPoint presentations, working up spreadsheets, or anything else (even tangentially) comms-related. Each day is different, and that’s one of my favourite things about the job.
I am no use to man nor beast without caffeine, so my day always begins with at least two cups of coffee. I tend to start the day by scrolling through emails and checking my work overview on monday.com (our task management system) to see what deadlines I have coming up and what I need to get done that day.
Client work takes top priority of course, so I try and get that boxed off in the mornings when my caffeine-fuelled brain is, more or less, firing on all cylinders.
The afternoons are reserved for more creative work, which is what I particularly enjoy doing. I find it’s a nice chilled way to finish up the day. (Yes, that was an unintentional rhyme – my creative writing degree has its uses!).
Of course, there are often days where I’ve got way more stuff to get through than I can finish and everything’s due by yesterday, and on those days my afternoons are rather less ‘creative and chilled’ and more ‘frantic and panicked’, but that’s just the nature of the comms world. Luckily, the ‘creative and chilled’ afternoons are more frequent!
I like to have music playing while I work, as it keeps me focused and less distracted by noises of the neighbours and my family trying (and mostly succeeding) to be quiet as they leave for and come back from work. I try not to have anything too energetic, as I’m then in danger of singing along like I’m at Wembley and not in my home office with deadlines to meet.
To stay on top of everything, I make lists – many lists. Aren’t lists a wonderful invention? I’m a bit of a recent convert, to tell the truth, as for a while I relied a little too heavily on my brain’s capacity to simply remember everything and never wrote anything down. Needless to say, this proved to be a pretty unreliable method (particularly as a large part of my brain is already occupied by musical theatre lyrics and errant story ideas). Now, lists are my friend. I keep everything in a thick notebook and colour-code tasks into marketing work and communications work. This helps me stay organised and keep on top of everything, and also gives me the satisfaction of ticking things off when they’re done. It’s the best.
My love for lists aside, another good thing about working for Sorted is the flexible working pattern. Having control over when I start and finish my day has been really freeing; if I want to finish a little earlier because I’ve got everything done, I can do that, and if I want to start a little later because I’ve stayed up too late the night before watching Netflix, I can do that too (…though I try not to make a habit of that).
Flexible hours also means I can comfortably fit all my various hobbies in. I sing second soprano in the Hallé Choir and, as well as performing in our home of Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, we often travel around the UK performing concerts in various cities. Sometimes, this means finishing work an hour or so earlier to hop on board a train, or a Bullocks coach (the glamour!). Knowing I can just shuffle my work hours around a little to make room for my other commitments means I’ve got more space to really enjoy them.
Having worked some very tedious jobs before starting at Sorted Communications, I really love the variety and flexibility of the work I do now. I also really like that I can fit work around me, rather than the other way around. That work-life balance can be an elusive so-and-so at times, but nowadays the scales are tilted much more in my favour.
To find out more about our team and how we work, contact us today.