“The customer wants to be referred to somebody they trust”

6am

I get up when my little girl gets up, which is usually around 6am. The first thing I do is go through to her room, and get her ready for nursery. My husband then takes her to nursery, and I go to the gym for 7am.

8am

I’m home from the gym at 8am, to walk the dogs and get ready to go into the practice.

9.15am

I work from home for some of the week, but on the days I’m in, I will get into practice for about quarter past nine. I run the clinic on a Tuesday, so I am usually juggling between managing that alongside the diary for the day, and doing the business admin – bills, processing holiday requests, marketing – and trying to do it all in the time I have.

2pm

The clinic only lasts until lunchtime, so the practice is usually closed in the afternoon. Lunch doesn’t really exist for me. I’ll be working through, and then because I’m at home for the afternoon, I usually grab something on my way back. It’s an on-the-go lunch. I come back around two o’clock, and work from home for three hours.

3pm

Working from home is usually more admin: going through policies and statements and processing the paperwork side of things, as well as looking at ways to grow the business. We do quite a lot of stories to promote who we are, and what we’re doing individually, as well as the practice.

It's also about improving the main street in Alexandria. Our recent Business Improvement District application was successful. For me, it’s about ensuring that the business survives and that the main street around it survives too. Our ethos is giving the best service to customers in our area – being the best opticians and giving the best health care. We would like to ensure that we are ticking all these boxes.

4.45pm

I close the laptop and finish work at around quarter to five. Taking time for myself is important – ensuring that I carve out 45 minutes or an hour every day for myself. If I didn’t do that every day, that slump and lack of momentum would kick in. Mentally, for me, it’s about physical exercise. That’s what gives me energy.

6pm

In the evening, we’ll watch anything that involves cooking. MasterChef – those sorts of programmes. Easy watching.

7pm

My go-to mid-week dinner, at this time of year, would be something really hearty – any sort of stew, anything with carbs, or a pasta dish maybe.