I’d go surfing, hiking, and dancing barefoot around a bonfire. I’d take a road trip somewhere new or sit by the ocean with friends and absolutely no plans.
I’ve always been curious about life and terrible at doing just one thing.
Over the years, I’ve worn a lot of hats. I worked as a land surveyor, salesperson, bartender, children’s activity leader, graphic designer, translator, website creator, freelancer, project manager, Reiki practitioner, massage therapist, and at one point during Covid, a vegetarian selling chicken because freelancers were among the first people to lose work.
I’ve worked in Australia at a potato bar where customers built their own meals around potatoes. I’ve worked for a sailboat company on a beach in Hawaii while traveling solo and learning how to surf. Today, I organize monthly events that bring entrepreneurs and creatives together in the small coastal town where I live in Mexico.
I like learning new things. I like meeting different people. I like variety.
What I don’t particularly like is sitting at a desk all day.
A screen all day feels like punishment.
My body doesn’t want to sit in a chair for eight hours and my brain agrees with it. A screen all day feels like punishment.
And yet here I am, with a computer job. Life is funny like that.
I didn’t set out to become a project manager. I went to business school because I was curious about a lot of things and it seemed like the path that kept the most doors open jobwise.
I did my internship at Salomon and got hired right after graduation. For a girl who loved the outdoors, it was pretty much the perfect place to start. The French Alps, a lake nearby, hikes on weekends, wake surfing during lunch breaks and occasionally the entire office disappearing after a night of heavy snowfall because everyone was out skiing. Not exactly the corporate experience people imagine.
After a few years, I stepped away from traditional office life and spent almost a decade freelancing. It gave me the freedom I wanted. I could organize my days around surfing, traveling and building a life that felt aligned with who I was.
But freelancing also comes with uncertainty and exhaustion.
So when I found a remote project manager role at Agency X that required all the skills I developed, working with a women-owned sustainable linen brand in Mexico, it felt like a gift.
It also put me back in front of a computer, with more structure, more meetings and accountability than I had grown used to as a freelancer.
My brain was built for project management
The funny thing is that project management is probably the most natural job I’ve ever had.
I never studied it formally. In fact, I only recently learned there are actual certifications for it. Maybe I’ll do one someday out of curiosity.
I don’t think there’s one right way to manage a project. Every project is different because every group of people is different.
For me, it isn’t really a methodology. It’s just how my brain works.
I can see the moving pieces, the deadlines, the dependencies, who needs what and in what order things need to happen. It almost appears as a series of images in my head.
That way of thinking was definitely sharpened at Salomon.
At one point, our team went from six people to two while keeping the same workload. We had a half-million-euro trade show to deliver while completely revamping the brand over a single summer, which in Europe is roughly the equivalent of trying to organize a wedding while everyone is on vacation.
I was 24 years old, managing suppliers and colleagues twice my age, with a tight budget and deadlines that had already passed. You learn fast what to cut.
Now the robot does the boring half
So yes, I’m back in front of a computer.
But freedom is still one of my highest priorities.
I care deeply about doing good work. I also care deeply about surfing on a Tuesday morning.
That’s where AI comes in.
Today, my project management role at Agency X has led me to become a skill engineer for BBN AI Studio, where I help build and refine AI skills that bring expertise into AI workflows and make AI more useful for our clients and their marketing teams.
A lot of my work involves writing. Emails, briefs, reports, follow-ups, drafts, social posts, revisions, summaries, project documentation. Then there is all the administrative work that comes with moving information between tools, platforms and teams.
Some of that work genuinely requires me.
A lot of it doesn’t.
What I have become very good at is figuring out where AI fits into my work, where it doesn’t, and how to adapt it to the actual needs of a client. That’s also part of my role with BBN AI Studio, where we build skills that help bring expertise into AI workflows instead of expecting people to figure everything out themselves.
It makes my screen time shrink and the amount of life outside grow.
I obviously don’t recommend being lazy about everything. But if using AI means I get to surf at 2 p.m. when the tide is right, have a two-hour lunch with a good friend, organize a community event on Friday morning once a month or watch the sunset over the Pacific every evening, then I am more than happy to let the machine handle the tasks that don’t need a human brain.
For me, that’s not avoiding work. It’s making room for life.