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A Week in My Life: David Kosky, co-founder of Work.Life

David Kosky

David Kosky, co-founder of Work.Life, takes us through a week in his working life. To suggest another senior media or creative figure for A Week In My Life, please email david@prolificnorth.co.uk.

Monday

I’m up at 6.30am most week days and have a bad habit of checking my emails first thing, usually until about 7. After I check there are no issues to deal with, I jump in the shower, get dressed and leave the house. We’ve just opened a new workspace in Fitzrovia, so I head there to check the team and clients are happy. By the time I’ve been squashed on the tube I’m usually starving so I chat to clients while making a coffee and getting breakfast. We offer a pretty healthy selection at Work.Life but I opt for a bowl of cereal and wade through the choice of almond, cashew and every other milk you can think of.

Then I get to my desk, set up my actions for the week and confirm all my meetings are taking place. Monday is for internal meetings so I meet with our marketing team to run through activity and also check in with the project manager for our new Manchester site which opens in November. It’s our first outside the South, so it’s a hugely exciting project.

Very quickly it’s lunch time so I try to grab something healthy to make up for my complete lack of any fitness currently. Then I head back to the office and work through emails and calls. I tend to leave the office and head home around 7.30pm and get back to a Gousto box waiting for me on the kitchen top. We’ve been trying it out, and it’s working pretty well but I’m usually the one trying to cook so I’m not sure it tastes as good as it should. After dinner and TV, I go to bed around 11pm.

Tuesday

I get up early to catch the early train out of Euston up to Manchester. I try to find a seat, which is always pretty difficult. I get to Manchester and take the short ten-minute walk down through Piccadilly Gardens and Market Street, before making a left at Halifax onto Brown Street. Our site is taking shape, ready for the November 19th launch, and I meet with Jamie, our Manchester Manager, for a quick update before the landlords turn up. I spend the morning with them, taking them through the plans for the space, before meeting the designers to discuss finishes, ideas and furniture sign off.

We’re fortunate to be working with several high-profile Manchester entrepreneurs for the design, so it’s massively exciting to see the finished scamps and the build begin to take shape – it’s one of our best workspaces yet. Jamie updates me on the interest so far – we only have a few office spaces yet and our hotdesking memberships and pay as you go passes are attracting massive interest.

At lunchtime, I head back to London to host a round table group with some large corporate occupiers who are all looking to understand how they can bring the coworking experience into their buildings for the staff. After the meeting, I quickly run through any outstanding emails, before heading home and attempting to cook again.

Wednesday

Wednesday mornings are usually packed with monthly sales and marketing calls. I meet our Head of Marketing and Memberships and spend 45 mins on the phone to each of our seven locations to run over any issues or important actions and make sure everything is running well. We pride ourselves on the happiness of our members, so these health check calls are critical even though they last the whole morning. I am meant to be quietly listening on the end of the phone but can’t help but to chip in more often than I probably should.

After the calls are finished, I grab lunch quickly as my afternoon is packed. I have meetings with individual landlords and agents to discuss particular properties and the new projects, before welcoming dozens of real estate contacts to tour the new Fitzrovia Work.Life. I manage to leave the office at 7.30pm to join a drinks event with other founders and CEOs of coworking spaces. The sector is growing massively and there’s some interesting conversations around what’s coming next. I leave the bar and manage to get home for 9.30pm. My wife has stepped in on cooking duties and made a lentil Sheppard’s pie – it’s delicious but pretty ironic given its vegetarian.

Thursday

I’m up earlier than normal and head to Fitzrovia for a 7.30am breakfast meeting with one of our board directors. There’s a really exciting opportunity for us on the table, so the early start doesn’t phase me. Later in the morning we have our quarterly meeting, so I prep the actions with my business partner, Elliot, before welcoming 40 of our team to update them on our performance and what’s coming up over the next few months.

Our quarterly meetings are pretty stressful but exciting, and they are a great opportunity to get everyone together in one place to reflect how far we’ve come. It means we can recap on our vision, remind ourselves why we do what we do and be reminded of the positive impact so many of our members hare with us.

When the presentation finishes, we put on a dinner and some beers for everyone, but after a few I show my age and head home, big day tomorrow!

Friday

Fridays always seem like the busiest day of the week for me! I get into the office early to catch up on anything I need to close out before the week is done. I tend to keep my diary open for external meetings so Fridays are spent meeting lots of different business, landlords and people to discuss new locations, technologies and everything in between.

On Fridays, I normally treat myself to something more unhealthy than normal at lunchtime but as expected, come back wishing I hadn’t eaten it. I have a meeting with one of the marketing team at Google this afternoon, and then meet one of our marketing contacts about our new branding to see whether we move forward with it.

I try to leave the office before 7pm to get home in time for an early dinner. It’s my turn again. Wasn’t great. I’m not sure how long my wife will put up with this.

Saturday

Forgot to cancel my alarm so it goes off at 6.30am. Wife wakes up and gets mad – not a great way to start the weekend, but after a few words we both manage to fall asleep again for a couple more hours.

No work on Saturdays – it’s a rule that I try not to break! I’m getting into golf at the moment so head down to the local course to get an early round in while the weather is still mild. I meet my wife after golf in town and we grab some food before meeting up with some friends for an afternoon drink. The drink turns into a session and before long there’s a group of us arguing over football and whether certain managers need to call it quits.

The arguments carry on over a curry and before long I’m being dragged home. Haven’t really done much today but I’m still tired. No late nights anymore….my clubbing days are a long way behind me.

Sunday

Shouldn’t have had that last wine yesterday, feeling it this morning. Can’t handle hangovers like I used to. I meet my business partner Elliot at 9am in the office to catch up – there’s usually so much going on during the week that Sundays are really the only day we get to discuss the company without other distractions. As my grandma said…you get out what you put in

We normally do a 90-minute management meeting running through any issues and KPIs and any leftover actions we agreed for the previous week. We cover the same agenda each week, as one thing we’ve realised over the last few years is that structure is key, especially when there’s a growing team and so many things to juggle.

I leave the office at 4 pm and head back home to relax. A couple of friends come over and ask me how my cooking skills are coming along. I answer by giving them a takeaway menu. The Thai comes, and we relax over the food and a couple of drinks, before waving off our friends and hitting the hay.

It’s been a busy week, but even though I’m shattered, there are so many exciting developments that I’m buzzing and can’t sleep. Only a few hours’ sleep and I’m ready to do it all again.

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