Andreas Karlsson is a Performance Manager at G Squared, a digital agency offering UX/UI design, web development, content marketing, and more.
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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?
I have been working in digital marketing since 2011. I was the first employee at Ingager and experienced the steepest learning curve of my career in the short three years I spent there.
I had always wanted to live in another country other than my native Sweden, so I decided to move to sunny Australia and continued my career here working for a variety of companies.
With a true entrepreneurial mindset, I have been lucky to acquire the amount of experience by helping start-ups, scale ups and large enterprises across Europe and Australia.
2) What does a day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?
I’m not a morning person, I tend to come into the office around 9-9.30am. I catch up with my team each morning to go through what tasks are due today and rest of the week to make sure we’re on top of our deadlines and produce great work utilising all the capacity in each team.
At lunch I normally go to the gym, it makes me feel less sluggish by the time it gets to late afternoon. I always try to spend 30min-1hour listening to podcasts of my interest.
In the evenings I try to be active, go to restaurants, events, galleries etc.
3) Does your current role allow for flexible or remote working? If so, how does that fit into your life and routine?
Yes, I believe that a flexible role and a flexible work lifestyle is integral to having happy employees. Every day is different, so why shouldn’t every workday be different?
4) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?
Work-life balance to me is to have the full autonomy to work 10-12 hours with your work, your own business and your life-admin tasks – all at the same time without a siloed approach.
5) In the past 12 months, have you started or stopped any routines or habits to change your life?
Other than working out differently by joining a CrossFit gym, doing dry-July and improving my diet, the most important thing that I’ve consciously been trying to do is to change my mind about things. Too many people take too much pride in their opinions and get biased. It is okay to change your decisions and opinions. It is eye-opening.
6) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?
Books:
- Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It… and Why the Rest Don’t
- Outliers
- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Podcasts:
7) Are there any products, gadgets or apps that you can’t live without?
At work – Trello and LastPass. Personal life – Can I say, ‘the internet’?
8) If you could read an interview about work-life balance by anyone, who would that be?
Greg McKeown.
9) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?
Read books, get inspiration from smart people and learn how to respond to situations before they happen, if nothing comes as a surprise you will not get flustered and you’ll be able to take your life to the next level.
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