A day in the life of… Evelien!

By Evelien Renders, cofounder of Leornova & information manager at Radboud University.

The slight buzzing wakes me at the exact moment my sleep is the lightest. My Sleep app’s AI tries to estimate when it would be the best time for me to wake up. This 7.47 hour night of sleep gets a four-star rating, not bad for a Wednesday! Another algorithmic miracle shows me my monthly fertility status. I’ve only been awake for six minutes, and already two algorithms have influenced my day.

The NOS gives me an overview of what I missed while sleeping. Ah, our prime minister has had a tough night… Still in bed, on to some email. My first attempt at my inbox today and I organise my emails into appropriate categories, answer mails that take under 2 minutes, and plan to-do items on today’s action list.

While working from home, there are also some recurring household activities. Fold laundry? Snooze till tomorrow. Clean the kitchen? Ugh, not today. Care for plants? Mark as done. After some weeding, the list is still slightly longer than I would like – just like every day.

I am getting up. A sweet jingle shows me that I haven’t lost any of my corona kilos yet. The smart scale never lies. Should I add a Body Pump lesson to my to-do list? I’m not sure yet, so I put it as an option on my calendar for tonight.

The first Zoom meeting of my Radboud-morning is starting while I’m still putting on some makeup. Turning on my camera, I look a bit sickly… A quick check on my white balance, and I’m back at a nice glowy sun kissed look. Time flies while clicking through Zoom, Outlook, OneNote, WebWhatsapp, Slack, Teams, and many Chrome tabs. Over the last months, I’ve optimised the distribution over my three displays. My two work laptops, one for Radboud University and one for Leornova, have become fully equipped virtual offices.

After a short lunch walk, I open my Leornova office (laptop). Our last Digitalisation Essentials workshop with 25 international colleagues from all over Europe goes smoothly. Our evaluation survey reflects terrific feedback, and many compliments. With five minutes of transition-time (toilet-break), I join the Mercator Launch Venture Track Return Day. What better way to finish my Digital Day than with these incredibly supportive people together with a good whisky.

At 19.00, laptops are shut off. I switch to my iPad for an episode of Vikings during dinner on the couch while catching up on my social messages. After a couple of episodes, I get in bed again. Dragging and dropping, I promise my calendar to do the 30 minutes of Body Pump tomorrow. At 21.00h, airplane mode makes me invisible to the digital world. Nobody needs to know the last-read page in my book when I fall asleep, except perhaps for Amazon.