A Day in the Life of Presh’s Senior Design Specialist

I am Brandon—the black sheep of Presh (locale-wise). Presh is headquartered in the absolutely beautiful cityscape (I swear my Creative Director did not pay me to say that) of Tampa Bay. I, however, am located in Wisconsin. There’s a snowstorm as I am writing this, so yeah, a bit of a difference in climate.

Despite the obvious contrast in climate, there is no contrast in how I feel like Presh is where I belong. Like any deadline-based work, it can be stressful, but the teamwork that thrives within Presh is (what I feel like an old person would say) nothing to shake a stick at.

As a Senior Design Specialist at Presh, only about 20% of my days are the same as the one before. I know what you’re thinking - “Oh snap, Brandon! What makes up that 20%?!” I know, right?! Well, the answer is, coffee, priorities, and teamwork.

The remaining 80% of my day usually unfolds as follows:

Every day I wake up around 7:15 AM and make coffee. I then drink, what most people would say is too much, of the aforementioned coffee. While drinking coffee, I listen to whatever playlist I have made for that week. Spoiler alert… it's mostly metal music. It pairs so well with my coffee.

About 5-10 minutes before my 9:30 AM standup meeting, I flip open my laptop and start to review my task list for the day. I’ll let you in on a little industry secret, no one stands up during standup meetings. I know, crazy right?! I like to review my list of tasks to see if there are items still in review, items needing edits, and new items on the list for the day.

During the morning meeting, our team addresses any issues, questions, or concerns regarding the items on their priority list. The biggest rule during these meetings is: never assume anything. It’s not all serious though, we catch up, joke a bit, and sometimes discuss anything awesome we did over the weekend.

After the morning standup meeting, I refill my coffee and start working on the day’s highest priority item. This may be a variety of things I do on a daily basis like design and build a web page, build pages for a website rebuild, design and build a landing page for a campaign, edit or update a PDF document, update a website’s theme and plugins, assist the other Design Specialist, amongst many other things.

My goal is to make a large dent in the day's task list before I take a lunch break. Although some days seem like there isn’t enough time to take a lunch break, it allows me to give my eyes a break from the screen and clear my mental cache.

After lunch, I will send my account manager an update on where I am at with my tasks then get back at it. In between finishing up that day’s task list and 5:00 pm, my account manager may hit me up and ask me to jump on a few small edits for a client they are meeting with. About 30 minutes before the day's end, I will give my account manager a final update on my list and where I am at.

I know it sounds hectic and unpredictable, but it’s fun and I absolutely love it.