24 hours with... Ashish Aggarwal

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: Ashish Aggarwal

Job: Director, product growth and marketing, Statiq

Professional mantra: Done is better than perfect. 

Personal mantra: Health and family. 

5:30-6am: Generally wake up before the alarm. The alarm acts as a fail-safe. The day starts with a small prayer to the Lord and a feeling of gratitude. I Try to stay away from my phone. 

6:30-7:30am: Try for 30 mins of yoga daily but my success rate is generally 50%. Mandatorily some time for meditation every day.  

7:30-8:30am: Wake my kid up, and drop him off the school bus around 8. This is the time I typically see my phone to figure out if anything is burning, for usual stuff I prefer to answer them once I have access to my laptop. (it's faster and more productive).  

8:30am: I love driving and my drive down to the office which is a 20-minute traffic drive. Thanks for Statiq’s early office timings. We used to have a super early office at 8am in the summers which helped me become a morning person. 

9-10am: Typically have breakfast with a coffee for the morning boost. Review my checklist for things to be achieved for the day, and try to keep it small. If it's a Monday generally I have my list of things to be achieved for the week ready by Sunday 

10am: Go through my emails, WhatsApp, Slack (all modes of communication) to answer, and unblock anyone in the team dependent on me. Marketing and Growth is primarily data-driven so checking data dashboards in the morning is the ritual to see if there is some issue. (funnel dashboards, user, paid marketing) 

10-11am: Chat with the team regarding any places they are stuck with or the priorities they need to act upon.  

11am-1pm: Time for meetings/weekly updates typically and functional with tech, product, HR etc. and taking a stack of things and most importantly unblocking stuff. I feel as a leader the most important role you play is to unblock the bandwidth of people and help them align with long/short-term goals. 

1-2pm: Try to catch lunch with team, if it gets delayed due to some commitments/meetings I have it alone I prefer going for a small walk after my lunch just to clear my mind. I am a walker and enjoy walking a lot, it helps me focus better and think clearly 

2-5pm: More and more meetings. Try to steal one hour at least for my focused/deep work which involves data crunching, and research reports. Catch a chai in between.   

5-6pm: Check my emails again to see if there is something to be attended to.  

6pm: Leave for home.  

6:30-7pm: Try and get some rest.

7-8pm: Play with my kid, and help him with his homework (even class 1 kids get a lot of homework these days!). 

8pm: Dinner. Try to read something soothing with/without the kid and stay away from gadgets to get a good night's sleep. Doesn’t happen more than 2 days a week. I want to read more. 

9-10pm: Check phone again to see if there is something to be attended to. There are days when the wrong campaigns are launched, some ads get disapproved.