Chelsea is one of our Business Development Managers here at Shoptimised, working with the rest of the sales team to get our Product Feed Optimisation and Incremental Sales services out there to agencies and brands. Chelsea joined us back in August 2020, when she made an important career change from Personal Training to sales.

This week we asked Chelsea to share with us her typical day and how she balances her family life with work during lockdown.

Coco pops o’clock

I usually ask my Fiancé Luke to wake me when he leaves the house for work at 6 am but I am now finding that I growl and roll back into a ball instead until my toddler-teenager Erin decides it’s Coco Pops time!

Once we’re up, Erin has her breakfast and Disney+ combo. A group of happy signing Disney characters is perfect when you are still half asleep, right? By this time, Luke has already left for the day, so it’s just us two Amigos. Breakfast for me is a nice cup of coffee. I’m a Mama who is powered by Caffeine ALL DAY EVERY DAY and I’ll occasionally have some toast or something along those lines.

WFH attire

I always have Erin’s nursery clothes ready the night before so that is one less job. As for me, I go for anything with an elasticated waist, the comfier the better.

I normally have my working day planned the day before, then I log my laptop on at ten minutes to 8 roughly and then I check what I have booked in for the day.

I tend to work from my dining room but sometimes I move around just for a change of scenery throughout the day. Removing myself out of the dining room definitely stops me from snacking all day.

Nursery trips and Shoptimised

Erin is now 3 and she’s becoming a very strong independent woman which I love but her inner Diva means we sometimes spend 20 minutes picking which colour bow she is going to wear.

She loves doing everything herself, except, one morning she got toothpaste in her eye – that was a disaster.

She knows Mummy starts work at 8 am so she joins me at the dining table and watches me until we leave for nursery. Erin and I head out the door just after twenty past 8, Luckily Erin’s nursery is just around the corner from our house, so we don’t have a long commute, but we still manage to squeeze in a good little dance to Baby Shark.

The team at Shoptimised is absolutely brilliant as they patiently wait for me while I’m on the nursery run. It usually only takes me 10 minutes to take Erin to the nursery and drive back, but they always wait until I am back to start our Morning Call, there is never any problem at all, which makes Shoptimised a really unique place to work.

Something that’s always on my mind is that before I started here, John and Nick told me that Shoptimised is a family-first company and I see such values every day at work, I am so thankful every day for being part of this amazing squad.

Our team isn’t just a regular team, we are more like a Family. Everyone keeps in contact throughout the day which is great, regularly chatting and updating each other on what is going on. We all have such a great relationship together and Beth keeps me going with her regular ‘Fact of the Day’ updates.

Sales calls plus a needy cat

I set out my tasks in my diary, so I pretty much know what I am doing at certain points in the day. I think it’s a good system to have and it helps me be more productive throughout the day. My ‘Woman on a Mission’ notebook is always with me, I am terrible, I write notes about notes but I strongly believe that’s the key to success.

Our family cat Colin likes to join my various sales calls and meetings, I feel like he gets vibes when I am on a Zoom call or Google meeting and he sits and cries randomly, sounding pretty much like a fire engine. Or sometimes if that doesn’t get enough attention, he’ll pop his head over my laptop screen.

Post- work fun

My post-work fun consists mainly of tea with the family, followed by Erin’s Barbie playtime or sometimes the dreaded Play-Dough moment becomes inevitable. I always try to get out for a walk and sometimes manage to even squeeze an Asda trip in. Happy days.

The thing about working from home is my Laptop is literally at arms reach and I am always tempted to go on and do extra, but as the saying goes Love what you do and you will never work a single day in your life.

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