Kristen Bigland

6.00 AM

I’m very much a morning person and have a solid morning routine. I wake up, do some meditation, and go for a walk down at the beach to start my day. Making time to clear my head before work is essential for me. In construction, you can potentially be on call all the time, so it’s important for me to make time for myself and set boundaries between my work and home life.  

I return home around 7.30 am and start my day working from home. I respond to emails, submit reports, check in with the teams on outstanding issues, and delegate responsibilities. I also prepare the equipment and documents I need for site.

I enjoy the fact that I get to structure what my days look like. There’s a built trust there: I consult with the teams, develop a priorities list, and work out the best approach to service the teams. If there are issues, we can re-evaluate. Generally, things run very smoothly, but the volume of work is consistently high, and it can be challenging.

9.00 AM

Today I went to site at 9.00 am. Every day is different, today I am starting at Dapto Station today. I enjoy working on several different projects. It makes work interesting because I’m not getting tunnel vision or focusing on one project the whole time. I like the opportunity to look at the bigger picture; share ideas, strategies and lessons learned with various groups of people.

I’m required to do a fortnightly environmental inspection of each site, so today I did that with the Site Manager and Project Engineers at Dapto. We had an unexpected heritage find, so we took photos to document it and discussed the situation with the Project Manager and Heritage Specialist to determine our next course of action.

11.00 AM

As part of environmental management and compliance, we monitored noise during standard construction hours at Dapto. Our noise levels were as expected, and I submitted the data to the client.

I then attended virtual meetings for another project while on site. I noted the actions sitting with me, organised follow-up meetings, and prepared an action plan.

2.00 PM

After wrapping up at Dapto, I went to another project at Unanderra Station to do another environmental inspection. I met with the Project Team to discuss upcoming plans for out-of-hours work.

4.00 PM

I left Unanderra at 4.00 pm and headed home to continue my work. Site days are long, as all my attention is on the site teams, and my other work must wait until I'm back at my home office. There's a lot of documentation and compliance reporting that needs to be done, so usually, I'll complete the bulk of it, at the end of the day.

I finished uploading data from the inspections item from home and allocated responsibilities for follow-up actions. I also touched base with our client to flag upcoming changes and let them know when to expect environmental deliverables.

5.30 PM

I aim to finish work no later than 5.30 pm or 6.00 pm. In this role, there is always work to do. The days will start as early as you want and end as late as you want, so clear boundaries are necessary.

After work, I’ll see friends or go for a swim, read, exercise and try to make the most out of my afternoon.

7.00 PM

My partner and I make dinner together around 7.00 pm. We catch up about our days'; highlights, low lights and things we are looking forward to. This de-briefing is essential to my day and helps me not internalise too much or become overwhelmed.

9.30 PM

Like my mornings, I try to have a good night-time routine. Getting enough sleep and going to bed early helps me feel energised when I wake up. It works out for me because I’m most productive in the morning.

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