Keir Whitaker
Web Developer, Podcaster, Co-Founder BreadApp, Event Organiser.
The Lifestyle Questionnaire.
What time do you wake up?
Luckily, I have always been a “morning person”. I say luckily as getting up early is – it appears – a pre-requisite of having children. Most mornings I wake naturally at around 6am.
I am normally granted a few minutes to greet the day before one or both of my young children announce that it’s time to get up.
What is the first thing you do when you start work?
Normally without fail, it’s checking email. I aspire to achieve inbox zero but it rarely happens. Depending on the projects I am involved with, this part of the day can take minutes or the whole morning.
How much time do you take for lunch, and what do you eat?
Not enough! If I am working from the home office. It’s normally 30 minutes but tends to be a bit longer if I am out and about as I try and combine it with a catch up or client meeting.
How do you deal with stressful periods? How do you get through them?
Excellent question! Occasionally, I do find myself getting stressed. Working for yourself can have this effect. Normally, the resolution comes when taking a step back, having the belief that you can do what’s needed to get the “job” done and starting over with the issue.
I am fortunate to be involved in a variety of interesting projects so can often leave one thing for a while and concentrate on something else. Often the solutions hit you when you aren’t really thinking about them.
What do you do when your body is screaming for a nap but time is lacking?
Occasionally, I succumb and take a short nap: it’s easy at home and it really does pay dividends. If that’s not an option, I tend to power through aided by caffeine which is far from ideal. Often a walk outside early afternoon does the trick of perking me up too.
What is usually the peak of pleasure in your day, and what do you dislike the most about a typical day in your life?
I confess to looking forward to my first fresh coffee of the day as well as hanging out with the kids first thing, watching TV and doing jigsaws. Conversely that moment when they are both in bed brings a sigh of relief and the prospect of a couple of hours me/we time.
Dislikes are harder to pinpoint. Paperwork, a.k.a life admin, often feels like a Herculean task and one I need to get better at. Other than that, it’s hard to think of anything.
How do you fill your leisure time?
Kids! Weekends are normally filled with entertaining and playing with the children, meeting friends or visiting family around the UK. After the children are asleep, I enjoy catching up on my magazine addiction and watching the latest DVD rental from Love Film: we’ve notched up over 80 films in the last two and a bit years.
What time do you usually go to bed?
Normally my eyelids start felling heavy around 10 pm and the head will hit the pillow around 11 pm. I tend to try and catch up on non work reading but this normally succeeds in sending me to sleep.
Filed In: Web Building
September 30, 2011 at 5:00 pm