Ivy Xiong

This is a Day in My Life - Working From Home (WFH) edition.

6.30 AM

First, the alarm goes off…

6.45 AM

Get out of bed and ready for the day. I never skip breakfast! Most mornings I will have vegemite and avocado toast with a dash of pepper. I also make myself a cup of green tea.

7.30 AM

CA study

I am currently undertaking my CA qualifications (which as a side note is supported by Grant Thornton!). One of the benefits of WFH is that I can use the commute time to actually get some CA study done.  I like to study before work as I find that I can process and retain information a lot better! I’m currently on my last technical module, Management Accounting & Applied Finance.

8.30 AM

Start work.

A backlog of emails stresses me out!  So the first thing I do is go through my emails. I see who I need to reply and what tasks I need to action. I then check my calendar, noting what meetings and training sessions I have on so I can organise my day around those.

9.15 AM

Weekly team call

Every Monday morning, the Restructuring Advisory team hops onto an MS Teams call to update each other on our weekly tasks and capacities. We also share any interesting facts, industry updates and appreciation messages. We take turns hosting the call, today was my turn!

9.45 AM

Letters and reports.

I work through preparing letters and reports that need to be sent to some of our stakeholders such as lawyers, real estate agents and creditors in the morning so the director and the partner can review them later in the day.

11.00 AM

Meetings

The meeting starts with a general catch-up to see how everyone is doing during the lockdown. The director, partner and I then discuss how we can progress a bankruptcy file and recover their assets for the benefit of creditors. After the meeting, I work through the action points gathered from the discussions.

1.00 PM

Lunchtime!

Today for lunch I have decided to heat up the pasta I made last night. If the weather allows, I like to get in at least a 30-minute walk around my neighbourhood. Given the number of days Melbourne has been in lockdown, I can almost say I have walked on every street in my area!

As some of my colleagues live in near me, we sometimes meet at the park for donuts, banh mi and bubble tea!

2.00 PM

Back to work.

The afternoons are usually when I receive calls from creditors, bankrupts and lawyers and today I receive some calls from them to discuss the matters.  I continue working through various tasks such as conducting investigations into assets, reviewing bank statements, liaising with real estate agents concerning the sale of a property and reviewing legal documents prepared by lawyers.

There has been a strong focus on sharpening the Restructuring Advisory team’s data analytic skills so we can streamline our financial analysis work.  We have been assigned various excel modules to complete. Today I’m working through the formulas and functions module.

5.15 PM

Finish work and finalise my timesheets.

I review my timesheet to ensure I have correctly billed the clients and flag any tasks which I need to complete tomorrow.

After work – Sometimes after work I’ll have online CA classes or an upcoming CA assessment which I need to study for. If I don’t have classes or have to study, you can find me baking, playing table tennis with my sister, watching Netflix and catching up with friends over Zoom.

Today I decided to bake an apple crumble cake (the key ingredient to a moist cake is yoghurt!)