Every day, I wake up at four am. I work out. I eat a healthy breakfast. Then I sit by my laptop and answer emails before coding and creating content for eight hours straight. Then I log off and hit the gym again. Lastly, I eat dinner and read a book on economics for an hour before falling asleep.
No, I am kidding. I wish to be disciplined and structured like that, but, in reality, every day varies in my personal and professional life.
Luckily, I thrive in chaos.
Meetings
I start my mornings by checking my calendar for meetings. Sometimes, I need to prepare the final touches on a document, draft some questions, or do some research on a company.
According to my Google Calendar insights, I spend about 10-12 hours per week on internal and external meetings. The scope of my meetings vary from brainstorming sessions, testing new features, taking calls with partners, and more.
Some advice I have is if you have a lot of meetings, try to consolidate or limit them to one or two days per week (not counting internal / stand-ups). I schedule all calls on Mondays and Tuesdays so it frees up days for me to focus on other things.
After meetings, if there are any pending items, I document them in my planner to check on later. I usually take notes during sessions which helps me recap it later if needed. I paste these summaries in Notion or Salesforce as well so I can update the team on what I am doing.
Emails / Messages
In addition to meetings, I spend some time answering emails and messages during the morning. Now, this one I am admittedly horrible at because I have not found a perfect way to manage inbounds on multiple platforms. I communicate with users and partners on more than five different platforms (Slack, Discord, Telegram, email, etc.).
In general, I try to check all the platforms at least once a day and answer as much as I am able to. If any require me to take action, I log those items into my planner or our team's organization tool, Linear. Per week, I could be responding to 20-50 inbounds.
In-person / Virtual Events
When it comes to events, the items around them are always a cycle of planning, executing, and measuring the outcome. I consider events anything from virtual workshops to in-person tech conferences. Therefore, the amount of input and output for these will vary.
Depending on the scope, planning usually involves brainstorming sessions, writing proposals, several calls, and working with the growth team on promotions. If there is traveling involved, it is also beneficial to create an itinerary.
Executing is just carrying out the plan. I do the speaking or hosting or helping. Whatever my role is for the event, I will play it. Pretty straightforward.
For measuring, I write reports.
Reports
While doing different tasks and experimenting is great, part of being in developer relations is writing up reports and measuring your impact.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Writing reports is arguably the most boring but vital part of my job. Writing reports give me insights into what went well, what didn't, and what I can do to improve on it next time. This is what my friend Kevin Canlas calls a “Post-mortem.” It sounds a bit grim, but you get the idea.
A portion of being in developer relations requires delivering quality experiences, and any part you can enhance will compound over time. Each workshop, speech, and piece of content created becomes better and contributes to this experience.
Creating Content
Creating content is one of the most enjoyable parts of being a developer advocate. I love the days when I can learn, code, and write something up to publish.
I tend to work on this portion towards the end of the week during my 'focus' days. For my job, I need to create content such as blogs, videos or guides. Usually, these pieces involve pair programming with our engineers to create a simple app with the guide.
If I am not exhausted by the weekend, I will create content for my own socials and blog. Lately, I have been experimenting with short videos on TikTok and YouTube Shorts. I also try to schedule tweets and Instagram posts weekly.
Some advice when it comes to creating content is to focus on the platform you are most comfortable with till you hit a point where you feel satisfied. For me, the preferred platforms are probably Twitter and my blog. When you want to experiment, try out other mediums or platforms sparingly.
Closing Thoughts
I hope this clarifies how a day in my life looks. And no, unfortunately, it's not only creating content and speaking at conferences which is what most assume. A ton of work goes behind-the-scenes. The good news is each second is incredibly fulfilling. I love working closely with my team to make magical things happen for the thirdweb community.