Fida Chaaban is Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Middle East and Entrepreneur Qatar magazines. She joined BNC Publishing, the publishers of Entrepreneur ME, in January 2014, having previously been Editor In Chief of RAGMAG magazine. Fida relocated to Dubai in February of this year to launch the MENA editions of the U.S.-based business and growth publication Entrepreneur. You can follow her on twitter at @fida. In this quick interview with Bayt.com, Fida shares a typical day in her life: Before 7:00 AM I do some of my own writing. It’s the only uninterrupted time of day for me, so this is when I focus on developing things like my monthly Editor’s Note and the feature stories that I write for the magazine. I ignore my emails, my trusty BlackBerry, and any other potential distractions, and try to make these early morning hours as productive as possible. 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM I generally start my day at least an hour before this, so I’ve already had one cup of coffee by this time. I’m checking all of Entrepreneur’s social media platforms to determine what activity we’ve seen overnight – this includes everything from LinkedIn to Google+. I check our analytics for all accounts as well, and do some Internet searching to determine where else our material is showing up, and who is sharing it. 8:30 AM – 9:00 AM I liaise with our team on what stories they need to be prioritizing for the website and for our print version. I usually spend about half an hour talking things over with our Creative Lead, Odette Kahwaji, and ensuring that she and I are on the same page for the material, and ascertaining what visuals are needed and so on. 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM Over the course of the morning leading into the afternoon, I’m answering the flood of emails that are coming in, and updating my personal social media platforms. I also have quick calls with our Board of Directors to see if they need things from the editorial, marketing or PR sides of our company. 1:00 PM – 7:00 PM This is generally when I try and squeeze in calls with people regarding PR and marketing, and I am editing submissions for the web and for print. I’m still on email, of course, but my energy is mostly dedicated here to working on our content calendar with Kareem Chehayeb and Pamella de Leon, two of our writers who have been with the magazine since inception. 7:00PM – 11:00PM At some point in the evening, I try and fit in some ashtanga yoga to get rejuvenated, and to collect my thoughts. This is also when I reflect on the day’s work, and establish what tactics were productive and what measures proved unproductive. At some point, I also try up draw up a map of what still needs to be addressed, figure out if I can delegate some of my work, and delineate what areas of our work are excelling and what areas are lagging. My yoga session is usually between an hour and an hour and a half, and during that time I am “switched-off”. Since my daytimes are usually spent fully engaged with work at my computer, I often schedule meetings post 8:00PM, as I find that I can usually devote at least 45 minutes to properly focus. These meetings can often go as late as 10:30PM, and by the time I’m done there, I head home again. Before calling it a day, I read both local and international news and articles that I have flagged throughout the day. I do a final check on all of our social media platforms, and finally sign off at about 11:30pm! I was asked by the lovely people at Bayt.com to suggest some professional tips for journalists, and those in our field that would like to become writers or editors. I think the most important element, other than being able to create quality content that tailors to your audience’s interests and needs, is to be timely in all aspects of work. This means respecting the time of your colleagues and the time of the people that you deal with externally for stories, interviews, and pretty much every other arena of your career. Time is the most precious and rare commodity, so you must be mindful of other people’s commitments and constraints in regards to deadlines, workload, and even personal time. Being meticulous in all aspects of your work is a definite need to success in this line of employment – you cannot afford to let sloppiness and a laissez-faire attitude master you. You have to have an eye for detail, and be willing to apply that eye to your output.
