24 hours with... Payal Chugh Vaidya

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: Payal Chugh Vaidya

Job: Managing director – CX, VMLY&R India

Professional mantra: Flow like water; always, work on progressing thoughts and actions

6-9am: Wake up with a spring in my step, looking forward to the beautiful day around 6.30 am.

Mornings are sacred and dedicated to working out on alternate days, meditation, sipping coffee on the balcony, tending to plants, and admiring the magnificent trees in the forest land that my balcony overlooks. 

Though rare in Mumbai, the sound of birds tweeting is a great wake-me-up. I use this time to journal my thoughts, plan for the day, and sometimes read a few pages from one of the books I’m devouring. I like to read multiple books at the same time. You’ll always find a pile lying around in different areas of my house. Sometimes, I use the mornings to catch up with my siblings who live in different parts of the world. 

9am-1pm: Start work around 9am with a quick glance at emails and replying to any urgent ones.

Then depending on the tasks, 9:30 am to 1 pm is spent between client meetings, internal meetings, reviews, working sessions with the clients and the team, workshops, and management meetings. Oscillating between listening to business challenges, pondering over problem statements, and thinking of solutions for clients and teams. 

1-2pm: Lunch is with peers and colleagues from other departments or with the team while exchanging silly anecdotes or simply bonding over some delicious homecooked food. We are still working in a hybrid manner. And when working from home, I like to play some soft lounge/jazz music or listen to a podcast while eating and take a sneak peek at the trees. Unfortunately, the reality is that often lunch hour from home gets compromised with meetings. 

2-6pm: This is the time when more work is done and meetings are conducted. This could be in-person or online depending on the need. I’ve been doing sandbox/innovation sessions with my team for two years now. These have taken different forms and shapes, earlier it started with me wanting to share processes, and methodologies and instil ways of working with human-centred design. Then we switched things up with learning sessions from peers and now they have changed to coming up with innovative ideas. I look forward to these team sessions every week. 

6–7pm: Time often spills over and I try to wrap up work around 7ish. Travelling back home gives me time to finish some client calls or catch up with friends and family over calls or a drink. 

7–8pm: Nights end with dinner around 8-8.30 pm and binging Netflix or a book. I like to sleep to meditative / nature sounds reflecting on all things that made the day. This goes on a loop the next morning. 

Weekends are a little different. I spend time doing reflection, meditation, meeting family and friends, spending time with my husband and parents, and speaking with siblings, cousins, and my little nephew and niece. Snuggling with a book and coffee. More Netflix and binge. 

I enjoy learning new things, be it pottery, different forms of workouts or courses from Forrester or thoughtful content from leaders around the world. I’m trying to find a routine that doesn’t break my routine. But then, I’m always a work in progress.