Week in the life of a 26-year old Architectural Designer & Educator working in New Hampshire, USA
Written by Melissa Olsen, Edited by Aliya @archistudentnotes
This week we have a submission from Melissa Olsen, a 26 year old Architectural Designer & Educator working in New Hampshire, USA on $45,000 a year who runs a platform on Instagram called architecture_unbound.
Architecture Unbound, run by Melissa Olsen is a hub of tutorials and advice across multiple platforms focused on teaching architecture students how to use Revit. Melissa offers tutorials and dedicated live and FREE workshops that take you through various common issues associated with the Revit program.
Definitely check out the great resources provided by Melissa, but for now lets get into the week!
Would you have tackled the week any differently?
Monday
I call Monday’s my CEO days… Here's why.
The start of the week is imperative to me having a fulfilling rest of the week and so every Monday I take the time to take a look at my goals and to do lists. I then prioritize what I feel should be accomplished in the week.
After I have a vision for what I want my week to look like, I check in with my finances and update any income or outcome from the previous week. I have only been self-employed full time for 6 months and so I still do everything myself! Therefore, it is really important for me to stay up to date on a lot of smaller tasks instead of putting them off and having a bigger pile to deal with in the future.
Note from Aliya @archistudentnotes: Excellent organisational skills from Melissa that are definetly inspiring me to have a more structured start to my week. This is also a favourable way to start a week as an architecture student.
Once I am done with these housekeeping tasks I get to dive into the more fun parts of my CEO days, course calls and creation.
I have one main course that I am in the process of recreating, Revit Foundations 2.0, a course for a young professional to take that will allow them to have confidence in Revit, whether they are in school or starting a job. Today I have the Revit Foundations second call at 4pm, we review and go over any questions from modules 1 and 2. These calls are my favorite because I get to connect with so many different people from all over the world.
I have a good stretch of time before my live call and that is when I will work on any course development that needs to be done. Today it is editing Revit Foundations module 4!
Tuesday
Typically, I like to work 6 hours of freelance Tuesdays, but there has been less freelancing work right now so my Tuesdays have been wide open as of late.
Therefore, I have been taking the opportunity to use this time to further work on Architecture Unbound community developments. Today I focused on editing the monthly AU podcast episode where I interviewed a fellow designer and course creator.
Once I am done editing, I have to upload it to anchor, where the episodes are hosted. I wrote a description and scheduled it to post for the next day. I then create a few marketing slides in canva and 2 reels of conversation snippets. Again, I do everything myself and I actually really enjoy the diversity.
I am a really multi-passionate person and I used to feel bad about wanting to do so many things, but now I accept all parts of me and find ways to fulfill the different desires to create. This podcast was one of those desires. I really wanted to find a way to connect to other people in the industry that are following non-traditional paths of architecture, and to start having conversations about the gaps between architecture school and the industry. So far I have 15 episodes and aim to get on a bi-weekly schedule instead of monthly.
Wednesday
I only have a few hours of freelancing work to do this week and so the middle of the week is my favorite time to do it.
I set aside 6 hours on Wednesdays as well, but right now I only have about 3 hours of work to do for the week. The summertime is always a really slow time in the industry and so I do not let the light hours deter me.
I worked on redlines in an Autocad file for a water waste treatment facility that was a 1 story slab on grade, wood framed square structure. The architect who hires me to do contract work for him reviews my work, will make comments back on elements in the file and then I fix and respond to them.
Note from Aliya @archistudentnotes: This is a very similar system found in architecture whether you work freelance or if you work regularly in the same office. You will receive a brief with instructions on what you need to do, you do the work and send it back for a review. You can find this same system in architecture schools when you consider tutorials and final reviews.
Mid Week Plug
Enjoying this weeks ArchiWeek? Interested in sharing your own week?
Thursday
Another day I would typically set aside 6 hours of freelancing, this gives me about 18-20 hours a week I would ideally like to fill with freelance work. This is not currently the reality, but it is the ideal schedule and time that I have set aside in my calendar for when the work picks up again. While there is no active work with my 2 current freelance clients, I spent this time searching for other freelance opportunities.
During this time period I focus on what I can control, and what I can choose to do with this open time in my schedule. Therefore, today I am doing extra tasks to get ahead for tomorrow. What feels fun for me to do today is film some content to get ahead of content creation tasks that I normally do on Friday.
I filmed Instagram reels for Architecture Unbound and was able to plan out 12 days of content in a content grid on canva. I highly recommend organizing your ideas and to pace out different topics and types of content.
Friday
Content creation days and reselling days are my funnest and favorite tasks and so of course I put them on Friday.
I start with my content creation by checking in with the current posts I have outlined for both my Architecture Unbound IG page and my clothing reselling business page. I recently decided to get into this niche because I found myself wanting to do something more active and the act of saving clothes from landfills is rewarding. Remember when I said I was multi-passionate? I really meant that haha.
I’ve always loved anything creative and when I was a kid I wanted to be a fashion designer…maybe this is that inner child poking through?
Note from Aliya @archistudentnotes: Funnily enough, I also wanted to be a fashion designer as a child, I wonder if this is common amongst architectural designers?
Once I make sure I have content for both pages planned and filmed for the week ahead, I start doing reselling tasks. I won’t bore you with the details, this is an architecture blog after all, but I photograph the items, edit them in canva and list them on ebay. A more fun activity is actually going to the Goodwill bins and sourcing the clothes. I love the feeling of finding a really stunning item of clothing. It takes my mind away from just architecture all the time and gives me a separate creative outlet. It is an easy fun activity that can also serve as passive income.
Over the last 6 months I have been trying to discover what makes me happy and fulfilled. Through a glance into my week you can see that I have a basic structure to my days but ultimately each week can look different. I like that everything is in a season of flexibility right now and know that I'll adapt to whatever comes my way. I hope that this inspires you to take risks and do what you’re most passionate about.
Extra note from the writer
I worked in the industry for 2.5 years, started Architecture Unbound 1 year into working fulltime and 6 months ago I quit the 9-5 to go full time in my business!
And that’s the week!
Thank you so much to Melissa from @architecture_unbound for this weeks submission here at ArchiWeek!
Check out Architecture_Unbound on Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, TikTok and check out her Revit workshop series.
If you’re interested in sharing your own ArchiWeek, your own reflection - click here!
