How you work

It's miserable weather outside and I'm spending all my weekends sitting at home, not wanting to go out. Eventually watching re-runs gets boring, so I thought I'd type up a thread instead on how I work.

Someone posted a thread about this sort of stuff in early 2014, although that was answering specific questions rather than being the diatribe of information that this post is.

Hopefully some of the other registered users can post on how they work and I may get some tips on how to do things better, lifehacker style.

Background and context - my workflow

I work on corporate finance transactions, mainly coming out of our IBD, and will normally have 3-4 live deals (ie very active), plus another 5-6 pipeline deals that are in earlier stages and a lot less active. Deals typically operate on 2-3 week timetables, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer.

I’m at my desk most of the day, in meetings usually 2-3 hours, typically on and off the phone through the day, sometimes on long conference calls.

I won’t give away much more, as it may identify me too much and I’ve already had one person identify me IRL as this account.

So, here's what I do in the vain hope of making myself a more productive person.

Before work

Walking my dogs, I’m listening to a podcast, audiobook or lecture. I endorse the MortPlayer Audio Books app for Android for this purpose.

The only podcast I listen to that is directly relevant to finance/markets is Masters in Business.

On the subway, I’m listening to the same while also reading through e-mails that have come in overnight.

I read these daily e-mail newsletters:

• The Deal Pipeline (thedeal.com) – just the Private Equity, Consumer & Retail and The Daily Deal
• DealBook (dealbook.nytimes.com)
• Seeking Alpha
• MarketSnacks
• Sinocism (mainly China politics related, an interest rather than necessary for work, tend to file this for reading later as it’s all links)

I also get PIMCO periodic e-mails (http://www.pimco.com/EN/Insights/Pages/ViewpointsOverview.aspx)

I also use Google Alerts to track some names, usually those which I’ve got shares in.

Reading these is usually a skim read, particularly on the DealBook and Deal Pipeline e-mails where I’m largely looking for activity in names/sectors that I’m involved with. If a piece is particularly interesting, I stop the audio so I can focus fully on reading the piece.

My train commute is 10-15 minutes, so often I don’t get through all these and will finish off reading them at work.

I also listen to podcasts/audiobooks/lectures walking dogs at night, when jogging, when getting lunch, when cooking dinner, when trying to nap in the office prayer room, when dozing off in bed at night, when I'm pretending that I'm listening to my wife. I like to take in information.

Desk set up

Two 28” monitors with my laptop below. I like lots of monitor real estate.

Everyone in my bank works in open plan.

I have a single shelf unit that is the width of the desk and sits under my monitors, plus another one on the side of the desk. These declutter my desk, as I can put deal files under the shelves, other crap and files on top.

I have post-it notes with the project names for the most active deals across the shelf, with corresponding deal folder underneath. The folder has a few essential documents (eg deal memos, my deal notes) plus print outs of key information documents (eg CIMs, key DD reports).

Less active deals sit in a folder holder thingie on the side shelf, near the back of my desk.

I chose a desk that gets natural sunlight in the morning so I get my vitamin D and all that stuff on.

Mailbox set up

Subfolders in my inbox:

• Action – any e-mail requiring follow up gets filed here as soon as I read it (or if I need to read it and haven't yet). This is effectively my to do list and I often send e-mails to myself with to do tasks, then file those in here. When the task is done, I move the e-mail out of here and into the general inbox or the project folder.
• Read – any e-mail not requiring action but that I should read. This is mainly where I file e-mail newsletters that I haven’t got around to reading, rather than work stuff.
• Personal filing – any personal account e-mails eg notices from banks, e-mails from share registries, insurance notes etc.

I keep a lean inbox and file deal-related e-mails to storage folders frequently. Those folders have a general folder, plus a sub folder called Key docs where I file any essential e-mails that I may need to refer to later (eg with critical attachments, CYA e-mails)

I file personal e-mails to a number of different folders. The more folders you set up (eg Tax, Insurance, Lease, Trading, Payroll), the easier it is to find an e-mail later. I also file all my paperwork into Acrobat files for each financial year, which is a lot less work than it sounds and makes life really easy when preparing tax returns, tracking personal portfolio, applying for bank loans etc. My default setting is “lazy”, so I have to make myself go through this discipline to actually keep an eye on my stuff.

On my screen

My desktop is a wallpaper I created which shows key reference information (phone numbers of team members, a load of numbers that I need to refer to a lot). The wallpaper is not dynamic, because the information I need is static. If I was in more of an equities market watching role, I’d consider creating a dynamic wallpaper (unless I had dashboard software that did the same job).

I created a two sided print out of the same information which I had our print room laminate. I often need to refer to this on calls and in meetings.

I keep my personal share portfolio details in Google Finance and always have that open in my web browser so I can track my portfolio. I keep that on my laptop screen because my monitors are huge and everyone can see what I’m doing on them.

Otherwise, most of onscreen day is spent in Word, Excel, Powerpoint and opening attachments in Acrobat for printing. Also, Microsoft Paint (see below).

Deal list

I have a deal list document. First is a table with deal name, a few other key statistics on the deal (eg size, deadline, level of approval required for balance sheet use, which juniors I have working on it) and key outstanding tasks. Along with the “Action” folder in my inbox, this forms my to do list.

Under the first table is non-deal to do items, whether work related or on personal account.

At the back of the document is deals we’ve done (cut and paste out of the first table when done) and dead deals (same cut and paste job) so I can keep track of deals over the course of the year.

I print out the pages with the first two table and keep them with me for jotting any new to dos that come up.

Note taking

Any task that I need to do gets marked with a square box. It then either gets ticked off soon after, or goes onto my to do list. This makes it easy to go back through notes and work out what's on my plate.

Anything that someone else needs to do/deliver to me which is essential for my work gets marked with a triangle. Again, at the end of a long meeting, this makes it easy to flick back through my notes and recap that this is a deliverable by whoever is responsible.

Other

A few things I do which I think make me more efficient:

• I have a Word template for my deal note files on my desktop so i can double click, start typing, then save to my deal folder
• When I’m putting together my notes on a deal, I’ll often ctrl + Prt Scr, then ctrl + v into Paint, select the chart/whatever I want, ctrl + c then ctrl + v into my notes. Most of my notes are just cut and paste of key information from various documents so I have the vital stuff on hand
• The process of putting together notes itself is more about making me understand the business and deal I’m looking at. This has been my learning style since university, where I’d type up kick arse notes, then never refer to them because it was the process of writing the notes themselves that made stuff stick in my head
• I block out gym sessions plus 30 minutes before and after in my diary as busy to avoid people booking conflicting meetings. I usually get 4 sessions done during the working week
• I never use out of office messages except for when I’m on long flights during business days, as I'm otherwise checking e-mails anyway