Ellen Kelly is the Director and Co-Founder of Avant PR, a Manchester-based agency that specialises in fashion, beauty and entertainment.
Here she gives us an inisght into her working-from-home arrangements…
Where in the house do you work?
In my living room. I live in an apartment with open plan living area and kitchen, which although is lovely and spacious, does leave me with limited options when I need a change of scene.
Paint a picture for us of the view from your window
I’m lucky to have what I class as one of the best city centre views from my window – I can see out over Ancoats, past all of the old mills to the Etihad and beyond, with the view even reaching Saddleworth Moors. I also look out over the Ancoats canal and marina; the houseboats and various wildlife that live here are always interesting to look at, and at the moment there are plenty of baby goslings and ducklings around. It’s currently a pretty busy area, as many people opt to take their daily walks around the marina, so there’s always chatter and dogs barking to be heard.
If you have one, can you talk us through your home-working daily routine?
I normally wake up at 7am and start my day with a 15 minute meditation – I’d been trying to make this into a daily habit before the pandemic hit, and am finding it even more beneficial now, as it calms my mind and puts me into a good headspace for the day. I make a coffee in my Nespresso machine and begin working around 8am, responding to any urgent emails from clients or media, liaising with new business leads and getting important admin bits boxed off.
The rest of my working day will vary depending on which clients and campaigns I’m focusing on – at the moment, we’re launching a couple of new brands including fashion label Liena and sustainable unisex brand nu-in, so I’m spending a lot of time creating media material for them and selling the brands in to national fashion press. As a team we’ve taken part in a few webinars with key members of the fashion and beauty press, talking about how they’re working during lockdown, and it’s been interesting to hear what type of content they’re publishing at the moment, and adapting our clients’ offerings accordingly.
I usually take a break mid-morning to go for my daily walk – I’ll either pop to my local shop, Ancoats General Store, to pick up coffee or essentials if I need to, or just walk around the marina. I make a point of eating my lunch away from my desk, and spend some time reading the week’s magazines and newspapers.
I finish the afternoon catching up on emails and planning my schedule for the next day, and try to clock off around 4.30pm, when I’ll do a Youtube workout or yoga session to wind down.
Which tools and technology do you rely on when working from home?
Obviously my Macbook Pro and iPhone are my lifelines when it comes to working from home. For keeping in touch with the team and our clients, we use a mixture of Zoom, Google Meet and Whatsapp groups. I always have to remember to dress up a bit for any Zoom calls I have in the diary! My business partner and I use a shared calendar in Outlook to co-ordinate on upcoming client calls and virtual new business meetings, as well as any deadlines or key campaign dates.
I’ve been making the most of the new and improved digital outputs from magazines such as Stylist and GQ which have adapted to fit the lockdown lifestyle – Stylist has paused printing of its magazine and instead issues are available digitally on its app, and GQ’s new weekly Happy Hour Instagram Live broadcast interviews guests from culture, style, sport and politics. It’s been interesting keeping up with how the traditional print mags are evolving during these times, and how we can adapt our ways of working to keep up.
Other than that, I’m heavily reliant on my coffee machine and my portable Sony speaker to get me through the day with some sanity!
