Life with LBS MBA, sneak peek of a typical day.

Starting the MBA program in October of this year, I thought I would have been able to manage my time between running my business, schooling, parenting and other ancillary daily functions. However, reflecting on the learning and experiences I have had so far; it has taught me the importance of planning my time properly. From the bedtime to wake up time, every single activity is now etched on the schedule and allocated appropriate time for execution. The day typically starts with hitting almost hitting the ground running trying to finish all the urgent and important tasks in time to allow more time for study and school activities.

First off is the school run activity; my personal alarm clock begins to buzz from 5:30am to 6am when I am mostly on my feet and ready to kick starting the day. I immediately open my personal daily planner to list out activities for the day always beginning with the school run. The school runs activity entails, waking up the kids, bathing them, getting them dressed and driving off to school for drop-off. Driving seems to be the longest and the most physically tedious activity of the morning as one has to battle through the heavy morning traffic usually caused by other workers frantically trying to meet up the 8am resumption time at their various work places.

Next up is resuming at the home office to review various reports and inputs from all the departmental heads of the business, working from home looks easy from the surface and can make life easier at first, but the reality is, asides being detrimental to employees mental health, it can lead to more ambiguity about job roles and reduce the chances for feedback which can make employees feel cut off. This period of the day takes a lot of mental energy as reviewing usually comes with series of meeting with line supervisors and departmental heads.

While virtual meetings offer increased flexibility, helps the business in cost savings, improves real time accessibility of employees/supervisors and enables the ability to communicate with individuals and teams to enhance productivity, collaboration, and communication in today’s world; virtual meetings can also take a lot of time away from being personally productive as some people are invited to meetings when they aren’t needed and Unless takeaways are written down, decisions made in the meetings aren’t recorded. These virtual meetings take majority of the business day as the meetings always tend to prolong more than the scheduled time.

Immediately following the meetings comes a review of the previous day’s faculty engagements and class works. All class meetings for the previous day are reviewed and a clarification sought in unclear and ambiguous areas beginning with a catch up of the video replays from previous classes to review of presentation slides after which a preview of the upcoming sessions begins. All the readings and cases from for the upcoming classes are practiced and familiarized to aid seamlessness in learning during the class sessions.

Other Ancillary activities are thereafter attended to till class time. I also ensure to shut down all physical or mental activities latest 10pm to allow time for enough sleep because adequate rest and sleep is required to function optimally every day.  

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