A Day in the Life of Chris Baraniuk

What I’m working on:

Luckily for me, I get to work on whatever I feel like! As a freelancer, I’m always darting around from story to story. For instance, I recently wrote about wildlife living in Chernobyl, how to build cities using bio-based materials, and the U.S. military’s flu vaccination policy.

Plus, I’ve just launched a coaching service for writers. It’s aimed at early career journalists and freelancers, but also other folks who understand the value of writing things themselves. I see it as taking a bit of a stand in a world where AI-generated copy is becoming ubiquitous.

Where I work:

I live in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on the side of a small hill that has great views of the city and Divis beyond (a larger hill to the west). We get buzzards, sparrowhawks, and ravens flying over the house now and again—though not usually all at once.

My workspace is my study, which is painted a very soothing shade of green. I have a map of the world on the wall above my desk. The desk itself was made to order, in an L-shape, and has space for my laptop, printer, computer speakers, microphone, some papers, an old-timey lamp—and a CRT TV with my Nintendo 64 hooked up to it.

Daily routine:

Three times a week, I go for a ~4 km run first thing. Then, a shower and I’m usually ready for work by around 9:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. I don’t eat breakfast on weekdays but I don’t even know if that’s a good idea or not. It’s just become a habit. I have lunch around 1pm and always listen to World at One on BBC Radio 4. On Mondays and Tuesdays my wife works late so I usually do, too. I cook a lot and tend to make dinner for my wife and I. We often watch TV or listen to music in the evening.

Most productive part of my day:

Definitely the morning. Unless deadlines demand otherwise, I always schedule writing for the morning. Most weeks, I write about two or three pieces in total. Whether they are 600- or 3,000-word commissions, I like to have them finished by lunchtime (though that doesn’t always happen). Getting the first line right takes a while—an hour, two hours, even! The rest flows pretty quickly after that.

Most essential ritual or habit:

I have some chunky reporters’ notebooks—actually I have a few dozen of them. There’s a particular brand I like, and I bought the notebooks in bulk some years ago. Every single day, the first thing I do when I sit down to work is flip open the notebook currently in use, and write down the name of the day, the date, and a to-do list. I also use Google Calendar to schedule interviews I have booked in with sources but nothing beats writing out every task and appointment by hand. I gleefully strike a line through each item when it’s done, or, if I don’t get to it by the end of the day, I draw a circle around that task to suggest I really will actually do that thing tomorrow. Probably.

Favorite note-taking techniques/tools:

I always buy the same kind of pen—a black ballpoint with a nice medium nib [Uniball Jetstream]. It doesn’t make my handwriting any better, alas, but I do like using it. Besides the notebooks, I generally work in MS Word. And during phone or Zoom interviews I touch-type notes while also recording the audio (with permission).

I paid something like £10 for an app called Total Recorder that allows me to record two-way audio from any comms service. Once upon a time I used Skype for interviews; these days it’s Zoom or Teams. It was very easy and cost-effective to call international phone numbers on Skype and I’m still testing alternative apps in the hope of finding a like-for-like replacement.

For in-person interviews, which I only do quite rarely these days, I have an Olympus voice recorder that has served me well for more than a decade.

Essential software/apps/productivity tools:

Nothing major, though I do have MS Office spreadsheets with which I track all my income and expenses for tax purposes. I came up with formulae that calculate everything I owe so it’s never a shock when I do my tax return!

How I balance work with the rest of life:

There are a lot of things I could say here but the main thing I’d highlight is gardening. My wife and I are lucky to have a generous garden where we grow a variety of flowers and vegetables. We converted the lawn into a small wildflower meadow a few years ago. I planted a cherry tree, spindle tree, and plum tree this winter just gone. There is nothing more therapeutic, and no better antidote to screen-time, than getting outside, listening to the birds chirping, and turning the compost pile–or checking to see how the courgettes and tomatoes are doing. Honestly, if I didn’t have the garden, I think I’d go mad.