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Balancing the Grind With Lily Hargreaves, eCommerce Manager at frank green

Lily Hargreaves is the eCommerce Manager at frank green, a lifestyle company offering sustainable products, where she is responsible for growing the brand’s global shopfronts.

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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?

I am currently the eCommerce manager at frank green, a lifestyle brand offering stylish, convenient and sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic products. In this role I manage the success and growth of frank green’s seven global shopfronts.

Previous to this role I was the Social Media & Content Manager at frank green and also Haymes Paint, both digital all-rounder roles where I worked on everything from paid and organic social media to email marketing, search engine marketing, display advertising, website management, digital content and influencer marketing.

Prior to this I kicked my career off in the public relations industry, working on strategic public relations campaigns and events for clients in the fashion, beauty and lifestyle space.

2) What does a day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?

My mornings are the only rigid part of my day, with my key tasks being checking that all shopfronts are functioning correctly, logging bugs with our developers where necessary and delving into the previous day’s sales. I try to tackle my most strenuous tasks in the morning as this is when I am the most productive.

The rest of my day is always different, and my role could see me working on anything from adding new products to a site, rolling out a new digital campaign, identifying and implementing new optimisations for the website, testing, reporting, delving into our performance marketing or working with our local and international logistics providers to ensure that our integrations are functioning correctly.

3) Does your current role allow for flexible or remote working? If so, how does that fit into your life and routine?

Definitely. I relocated to Adelaide four months ago and was lucky enough to be able to retain my position at frank green working remotely.

The beauty of this day and age is the ease of communication, and my team and I have been able to utilise Slack, Google Hangouts and email to be able to maintain contact.

It’s definitely been a transition, and while the lack of face-to-face interaction can be difficult I can say without a doubt that I’ve never been more productive in my life.

4) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?

Work-life balance is living a life where I can recharge and unwind enough in my personal life to be able to bring my A-game in the hours that I am working.

One of the hardest things about working remotely from home is the blurring of the divide between being at work and being at home. When you can see your desk from the living room it becomes all too easy to reply to ‘just one more email’.

The best solutions I have implemented to help set boundaries have been making sure that all work is done from my desk in the office. I definitely gave in to the temptation of working from the couch a couple of hours a day for the first few weeks of remote working, but quickly realised I was creating habits where it was all too easy to continue working on the couch in the evening.

The next solution I implemented was to head out to the gym or take a walk at the end of each working day, something to create a clear divide between the end of my workday and the start of my evening.

5) What do you think are some of the best habits or routines that you’ve developed over the years to help you achieve success in your life?

  • Always break the big tasks down into manageable, bite-size pieces. There is nothing more intimidating than a huge project that needs to be tackled, but when you’ve already fleshed out the steps you need to take to get to completion it’s much easier to digest.
  • Templating out recurring tasks. As soon as I recognise a series of tasks that need to be frequently executed (think new product launches), I will automate where possible and build the rest of the tasks out into an easily duplicatable checklist on Monday so that important steps never get missed.
  • Meal prepping and planning out my workouts in advance. Unfortunately the first thing that slips for me during busy periods is diet and exercise, but making sure that I have healthy meals ready to go in the fridge and my workouts planned out takes out the thinking aspect, and allows me to just execute without thinking.

6) Are there any books that have helped you improve over the years?

Atomic Habits by James Clear is an incredible read for anyone trying to break bad habits or build new ones.

It fleshes out the science behind how these habits are formed, and highlights why discipline will always be a more important factor than motivation. It’s all about making small, consistent changes over time that will improve your trajectory little by little.

One of my favourite quotes from the book is, “If you want to predict where you’ll end up in life, all you have to do is follow the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and see how your daily choices will compound ten or twenty years down the line.”

7) What is the number one thing you do to make sure you get the most out of your day?

I make sure to plan and organise my days in advance so that I can work through tasks based on priority, and slot in any urgent tasks that require my schedule to remain agile accordingly.

8) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?

Remember to take time for yourself, and include self-care in your daily to-do list. In my experience having a better work-life balance has directly correlated with being able to bring more clarity, creativity and passion to my work.

If you’d like to have a conversation with us about how you balance the grind, get in touch with us!

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About Author

Hey there! I'm Hao, the Editor-in-Chief at Balance the Grind. We’re on a mission to showcase healthy work-life balance through interesting stories from people all over the world, in different careers and lifestyles.