24 hours with... Abhinav Kaushik

Ever wondered what an ideal day in the life of someone from advertising/marketing/media is? We're here to spill the beans on it.

Every Tuesday, we'll have a person from the advertising/marketing/media industry profiled in this section.

Name: Abhinav Kaushik

Job: President, FCB India.

Professional mantra: Vision without action is just a daydream.

Personal mantra: Be real or be gone.

5am: A firm believer in the 5am club, my mornings start at 4.45am without any wake-up alarm, as my body clock is now attuned to waking up at this time for years. With more mind control, alarms have actually become redundant in my case.

5:30am: Fitness is a quintessential part of my life and I hit the gym at 5.30am. The covid onslaught helped me create a big terrace gym in my house - just in the nick of time before the first lockdown hit the country. And now that is as good as a professional gym with multiple machines. I spend close to about 1.5 hours in weight training, free running, and body weight exercises. All throughout this exercise regime, I keep listening to an eclectic mix of music – Sufi, old hindi or old western, qawwalis and even devotional music at times.

7am: I spend around 20 minutes in an immersive meditation session with chanting that helps my calm down and channelise my mind and energy flow in the right direction.

7:30am: My son is all set for the school, and I spend a quick 10-15 minutes with him and then take a small drive to drop him to the school. The chit chat in the car is about his subjects, friends and all other activities at the school. Often, he indulges me in discussing a lot of things related to general knowledge which is our common interest. I also keep motivating and challenging him to do well in in next test or assignment at the school. Conversations also revolve around being honest and grounded at all times.  

8am: Discussing all things important and critical with my better half, prioritising things for the house and planning our days ahead. This is a time where both of us catchup on everything that’s important in our lives and even discuss small little pain points that need attention from us.

9:30am: Breakfast with a good balance of long-lasting carbs, milk and fruit. I also spent a good amount of time in deciding on the six critical meals of the day that I always carry in my big food basket. These six meals are a good mix of macro and micronutrients with a skew on proteins and fibre and limited carbs.

10am: I hit the office and immediately get down to penning down my mental notes in my work diary. These mental notes are almost like an ABC analysis that give me a clear picture of what’s critical, what’s manageable and what’s coming up or in the backburner.   

10:30am: Meeting with the business teams and discussing and deciding on managing things at work. This is followed by intermittent client calls, alley discussions with the creative and planning team members, brain-storming discussions on briefs, work reviews and a whole lot of other un-planned stuff that keeps happening in the flow. My better half and my family don’t disturb me in this first half at all and they know that this is where I exert a lot of energy. Even small little things are shared on WhatsApp or messages without any disturbance.

1pm: I’m no formal eater and I don’t want to spend more then 5 to 10 minutes in finishing my meals, so I don’t venture out or go to the canteen too. I just open one of my meal boxes and finish it peacefully in my room.

2pm: Mostly the time for all the presentations and the client calls. And if those client calls and presentations are relatively low, then we are back to discussing the brands, campaigns, briefs and the proactive opportunities that can be created. I work like a shop floor, so my style is fluid and I keep moving around and heading to people’s desks to quickly strike a conversation. I promote fluidity and an informal style of working. My cabin doors are open all the time and I want people to drop all pretences and guards to work honestly and candidly with me. I really make sure that I try to give as many opportunities to even the junior-most members of the team with enough and more room to find their feet and even take failures as learning experiences.

5:30pm: Time to pen a lot of mails and make a lot of notes on where we are and how have fared throughout the day. Also, take quick updates from the team to chart out the agenda for the next day.

6:30pm: Time to catchup and connect in the car while traveling back from office. This is a good time for calls to the family members and friends. I also us this time to check and reply to messages on various WhatsApp groups.

7pm: Quick dinner with lots of veggies and good source of protein and a whole lot of beautiful and candid dinner table conversations with the family and especially my son about his school time and all the happenings throughout the day. If I’m still stuck in office, my 6th meal of the day becomes my dinner – as I don’t delay my dinner and always keep a 3-hour gap between my dinner and the sleep time.

7:30pm: Time for our passion – music. I play a lot of musical instruments and have a keen interest in music, and my son learns the Indian classical music for the last six years. So, we head to our music room accompanied by my wife who herself is a great singer. We jam, fiddle around with piano, guitar and synthesiser to hum, sing and recap our favourite songs. This is a good time to bond with the family. The music sessions are interspersed with jokes and a whole lot of chit chat. Every now and then, I keep getting calls or messages from the office team, so I keep responding to those as well.

8:30pm: Time for catching up good series on Netflix or any other platform or spending time in reading a non-fiction book are the favourite things in this time. As a parallel, I keep a quick check on my mails and messages that warrant attention.

9:30pm: Either continuing to read the book or catching up on a geo-political or a sports’ podcast before my body clock tunes me to crash at 10.00pm. I make sure that I sleep early and catchup a good 6-6.5 hours sleep everyday. I believe that food, exercise and rest go hand in hand for a perfect body and mind - so sleeping on time is really an important part of my daily life. I may not do it regularly but I definitely try to.