A Day in the Life of Dustin Cleckler, Principal Consultant

Ever wondered what a day in the life of one of our consultants looks like? This series will give you all the details! Our “Day in the Life” subject is Dustin Cleckler, a Principal Consultant on the Intelligent Automation team located in Nashville, Tennessee. Here’s what a typical day looks like for Dustin. 

Morning 

I’m not an early riser, but I can if I must. I usually prefer to go to bed at 11 pm or midnight and wake up between 7 and 8 am. I naturally require a lot of sleep. I could easily sleep 12 hours a night if I didn’t have any responsibilities.  

I usually kick off my morning with an easy breakfast like eggs or an omelet. I have been trying to cut back on caffeine lately so I will have half a cup or so of coffee after breakfast right as I log on for the day. My current role consists of leading Intelligent Automation delivery. I have a good mix between technical and manager responsibilities. I provide oversite on most IA projects and also do some delivery work myself (solution design documents and even writing bots). I also manage our IA developers and help them as needed.

I’ve been working from home full-time. I try to log on by 8:30 or 9 am. Four out of five days this week, I have a meeting at or around that time. I take my meetings and get miscellaneous tasks done in the morning.  

Lunch Time

I take a lunch break sometime between 11:30 and 1:30 depending on my schedule. During lunch I will usually log off for 45 minutes to eat and watch YouTube or an episode of whatever TV show I am currently going through.  I like to watch a variety of YouTube content including fitness, educational, fabrication and sports. Some of my favorite channels are ColinFurze, Daily Dose of Internet, and Sam O’Nella Academy. Usually, it’s just me at the house alone since my wife works on-site all day. 

Afternoon 

I have about 25% of my time set aside for actual coding. You’ll usually see a work block that says, ‘Do Not Disturb’ if I have a project where I need a lot of focus time. That’s either for coding or documentation, which is a big part of what I do. I’ll often have that done in the afternoon once I’ve finally started to feel more awake.  

For setting, I have an upstairs desk that acts as my office, where I have two monitors, a camera, and a mic. I also like to stand, so I have a computer monitor downstairs in the garage with a standing setup. Depending on what kind of work I’m doing, I’ll occasionally go down to that standing desk. For a change of scenery, I’ll go to a local coffee shop about once a week – even though I’m trying to drink less coffee. That’s probably a bad thing. 

I’m big on music while I work. I do no-lyric stuff, like classical, or I have a playlist on apple music called Beatstrumentals that I like. I tend to focus a lot better without lyrical songs. 

I’ve also got this weird thing where I feel I work more effective if the vibes are right. So, for example, if my room isn’t clean, it’s hard for me to focus, and I feel way more efficient when I have a candle lit in the space. 

I often have afternoon calls as well. If I don’t need my camera, I like to take those meetings via the phone and walk around the neighborhood. Many client calls are not video calls, so this works out well. It’s a good habit to be able to get some sun and vitamin D. 

After Work

I like to log off around 5 pm, but I take some time off and return to work in the evening because I do my best work between 8 to 10 pm. When I log off, I’ll go to the gym and do home responsibilities like cleaning up or picking up groceries for dinner.