A day in the life of a CTO

I’ve seen a lot of blog posts and personal videos lately about “A day in the life of a CxO” who is apparently “absolutely crushing it?!”. So I thought I’d join the bandwagon and give my own take.

Monday, 14th August 2023

[06:07] Tap on my shoulder from my 3 year old. “Daddy, is it daytime yet?”. Me: “Nope”. Him: “But the sun’s up and I want to watch PJ Masks”. My son and I get up as quiet as little mice ?? to let my partner and our 4-month-old lie in. Make mental note to myself to “teach my son about his day/night clock and that ‘daytime’ starts when the pre-programmed sun picture appears on the front”.

[06:20] Make a coffee (strong with oat milk) and read up on news and emails. Quickly realise that little has happened in the world since I went to bed last night. Therefore, settle in to an hour and a half of PJ Masks. At some point I empty the dishwasher.

[08:00] Partner and baby emerge. Reheat her coffee (not so strong, sweetener, oat milk). Do a nappy change and have 10 minutes of family chat.

[08:15] Frantically get my son ready for nursery. A task that should take 10 minutes.

[08:50] 35 (!!) minutes later, race out the house realising that, like every day, it takes much longer to get him ready!

[08:59] Drop son off with a minute to spare.

[09:10] Get to my desk 10 minutes late ??. Mental note to put in an extra 10 mins over lunch to make up.

[9:20] Coffee! The co-working space I work in The Old Church School has a a proper [as in Starbucks] coffee machine which everyone is free to use. If all else fails, I’m becoming quite the barista.

[09:25] Quick catch-up with emails. Review some website content, some business card designs, and email an existing client about some technical kiosk matters.

[10:00] Attend the weekly ‘All-Hands’ video call with the entire company. As employees at Living Map are predominantly full-time remote working, it’s a great chance for everyone to see each others faces, especially people who don’t work within the same team. Senior Management update the staff on latest goings-on in Sales, Marketing and Product Development. It’s been a good week so positive news all round.

[10:15] Everyone breaks for their respective team stand-ups. I continue discussions with our Chief Revenue Officer about the latest sales opportunities, technical complexities, and technical pitches.

[11:00] Attend weekly Management Meeting with our CEO, CRO, Head of Delivery, and Finance Director, to discuss the sales pipeline, the delivery pipeline, account management, office admin, hiring, board packs, and anything else of importance.

[11:55] 5 minutes for a coffee!

[12:00] Have one of two bi-weekly catch-ups with my Delivery Team to discuss this week’s schedule of project and product deliverables.

[12:30] Meet with my Data Team about the output from a data sanitisation program I wrote last week. Some refinements are needed to change the output from JSON to SQL, which I’ll do tomorrow. Who says CTOs can’t dabble in a bit of coding!

[13:00] Respond to some emails about remote kiosk management.

[13:25] Quickly grab some lunch at the local M&S. Today’s choice - a ‘Hoison No-Duck’ wrap. I’m trying to cut down on meat intake, yet try and balance it with increased protein intake. Quite a hard trade-off to follow.

[13:45] Back to my desk to start the provisioning of three new laptops for some new starters in September. In such a small company, CxO level executives can end up wearing many hats and undertake tasks which would normally be delegated. Personally, I actually don’t mind doing this type of work as the one I’d delegate to, my DevOps Engineer, can concentrate on actual product and project work. As we grow, I’m sure an IT Administrator role will become a necessity, but for now it’s something that I’m happy to fulfil on the side. As a benefit though, it allows me to define the processes required for us to gain ISO27001 accreditation which I’m steering our company towards later this year.

[15:00] Have a quick discussion with one of our Senior Data Engineers and a Project Manager about routing (wayfinding) requirements for a particular client. Decisions were made and she’ll be working on it this week.

[15:15] Return to setting up laptops for another 45 minutes whilst also replying to emails.

[16:00] Down tools and head to the gym for an hour to lift heavy things and make myself sore (absolutely crushing it?! ????). My gym of choice is Watson Gym 24/7.

[17:15] Pick-up my son from nursery and head home to join my partner and daughter.

[18:00] Decide to give my daughter a bath in the kitchen sink. Panic as we realise that she finally likes to splash around, so manages to flood the kitchen floor!! ?? We now rush a butt-naked baby through the house to the main bath, leaving my 3 year old son to mop up the mess on the kitchen floor.

[18:30] We make our dinner – vegetable rogan josh with veggie sausage chunks from THIS? – actually no too shabby.

[19:00] 15 minutes of playing Angry Birds (remember that classic) with my son before we start the bedtime routine.

[19:15] Bedtime routine begins. PJs, teeth, face, hands, nappy, story, rock baby, then lie beside my son’s bed for 15 minutes whilst he falls asleep.

[20:35] Wonder how the bedtime routine takes over an hour! Head back downstairs to do an hour of admin work in front of the TV to make up for leaving early for the gym.

[21:45] Shut the lid on my laptop, make my partner a cup of tea, and settle down with her to catch up on the latest episode of the Walking Dead spin-off: Dead City. Nothing like the threat of a zombie apocalypse to set the theme for tonight’s dreaming.

[10:35] Brush my teeth, wash my face, and head to bed.

[11:05] Decide to do a half-hour of Kindle reading. Just started reading Who Hunts the Whale which is a satirical novel set in the exploitative world of big-budget game development. One chapter in and it’s so far it’s pretty good.

[11:17] Nod off and drop the Kindle on my face! An indication it’s time to go to sleep.

[11:18] Sleep.