Work, housework, childcare, my own projects... I juggle everything every day. Planner Makoto Yamauchi

Hello, I'm Sugimoto, a writer living in Kyoto.
Winter has arrived, and we shiver from the cold of the wicked basin.

In this installment of the interview series " Freedom and Responsibility: Everyone's Systems and Work Styles Laboratory ," in which we hear about the work styles of Monosus members who work fully flexibly and fully remotely, their thoughts about the company, and their outlook on work, we spoke with planner Yamauchi Makoto, also known as "Makoto-san."

Her main job now is field marketing. She basically works from a client's office (since the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been working remotely). She has also been involved in the art world since her student days, and still runs a gallery called " Open Letter " in a house in Kamikitazawa that she renovated herself. In her private life, she is expecting her second child in 2022 (congratulations!).

Work, housework, child-rearing, and "things you want to do."
Now in his 12th year at Monosus, how does Yamauchi juggle each day with only 24 hours in it?

What is it like working with your classmates?

Sugimoto: I heard that you were high school classmates with Hayashi (the president) and Manabe (the CDO). I thought it was quite rare to have three classmates in a company.

Yamauchi: That's true. However, I worked with Manabe-san at my previous job at an advertising production company, and at the time I consulted and asked Monosus for a large-scale web production project. After I entered the workforce, our relationship became more like working together than being friends. From the perspective of the other members, we may have seemed a little like friends, but I don't think there was much of a special feeling that we were just friends.

Sugimoto: By the way, are there many students at your high school who like to make things?

Yamauchi: No, it wasn't like that. What do you think? Maybe I like making things with my hands, but I also like working with others in my own style, and I'm interested in people like that.

Sugimoto: What kind of work have you been doing since joining the company?

Yamauchi: For a while, I was often in charge of web projects together with Hayashi, and I was constantly drawing proposals and wireframes. About three years after joining the company, I started working with my current client. At first, I was also working on web projects, but after about six months, I was working there full-time.

Sugimoto: I'd like to hear about the specifics of your work, to the extent that you can talk about it.

Yamauchi: I work on all aspects of creative production and administrative tasks for various marketing activities carried out by clients. For example, I am involved in the overall production of various content that arises in conjunction with planned events, as well as web pages, paper media, videos, etc.

Sugimoto: Even though Monosus has become fully flexible and fully remote, does your work structure still conform to the rules of the company you're seconded to?

Yamauchi: That's right. There is no set time to come to the office at the company where we are based, so we all came to the office at our own pace, but there was something like a core time, and everyone was in the office from 9-10am to around 6pm. Since COVID-19, we have been working fully remotely in principle, but now it is possible to come to the office. However, both I and my team members mostly work from home.

The difficulty of balancing work, housework, and childcare

Sugimoto: Since you went fully remote, have your working hours changed?

Yamauchi: My current job involves a lot of meetings with clients, so my working hours are inevitably aligned with the client's working hours, so there's basically no change. There are no night meetings at my permanent office, so I work from around 8-9pm until 6pm at the latest. However, by going remote, I no longer have to commute about two hours round trip, which has been a big help in securing more time for housework and childcare.

Sugimoto: After she started working there, she got married and had a child, and I think the couple were able to create a new system for how they spent their working hours and how they spent on housework and childcare.

Yamauchi: Before I had my child, I was able to work as much time as I wanted. To put it simply, the quality of my work improves the more time I spend on it. But when I have to take my child to and from daycare, I have to make hard cuts to my work hours. I had to completely rethink the way I work.

Sugimoto: When you get into a busy season at work, do you ever say to your family, "Sorry about that!"?

Yamauchi: Now is that time of year. Of course, there are times when I work until late at night after putting my kids to bed, but I'm managing to manage it. But thanks to the understanding and support of my clients and team members, I think it's become easier to handle than last year or the year before.

Pursuing quality within time constraints

Sugimoto: Work and family are important, and if you try to do both responsibly, you end up with less time for yourself. But I think that creative work requires freedom in some sense. How do you find "freedom" within yourself?

Yamauchi: Looking back, I may not have been concentrating as much before, taking advantage of the fact that I had unlimited time to use. On the other hand, now that I have limited time to use, I feel like I have gotten the hang of working efficiently to complete the same quality work in a short amount of time. Also, the work required of me has become more standardized over the past few years. By repeatedly doing things like writing manuscripts for keynote speeches at events, working on graphics such as key visuals, and directing presentation slides, I have come to understand the key points, and I can now predict the work ahead.

Before, I would move my hands and search for a shape that would emerge, but now I work with the feeling that I have a more or less fixed idea of the shape and am approaching it accordingly.

Sugimoto: I guess it's the idea of having the freedom to "become able to do things."

Yamauchi: Do you mean in the sense of "becoming more free"? I think I'm now in a state where I have more control over my work than before, with a greater sense of the whole.

I want to do it again! "In-house flea market" and "Part-time lecturer night"

Sugimoto: I've heard from friends that raising children is difficult until they start elementary school. Is there anything you would like to do once things settle down a bit?

Scenes from "Migrating Things" (held in December 2018)

"Special Lecture for Part-time Lecturers" jointly organized with Yosuke Hayashi of HAUS (held in January 2020)

Yamauchi: For example, there are various things I want to do as my own projects at the company. I had a lot of fun at the in-house flea market "Megurumono-tachi" that we used to do, and everyone enjoyed it too, so I would like to create a place where everyone can gather again.

After holding the " Special Lectures for Part-time Lecturers " twice in collaboration with Yosuke Hayashi of HAUS, it was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Part-time lecturers in various fields prepare very densely and attend classes, but they only have the opportunity to do so about once a year. This is an event to share the lecture content in a public forum for people who are interested in it. I hope to reboot this somewhere. I also want to spend more time on the project for the gallery "Open Letter". As with all of them, I would like to recruit planning and management members and work together as a team, even if it's small.

Sugimoto: I'm looking forward to it restarting!

I had heard the name "Shin-san" from many people, but this was the first time I had a chance to talk to him. Previously, Yamauchi-san wrote an article titled " Let's make a ruler app for 'working like you live' ", which conveys his desire to make Monosus a fun place together by interacting with each member while looking down on the entire company.

He has a very open mind, a strong sense of responsibility, comes up with a lot of ideas, and has the ability to give them shape. Listening to him talk, I think Yamauchi's freedom comes from the fact that he doesn't take a passive approach to anything he does, but instead tackles it as something he "wants to do."

I hope that with Yamauchi at the center, everyone will work together and something interesting will start. I think there's nothing that can generate more energy than people getting together and having fun together.