I wake up, shower, wallop down my breakfast and rush to work by 8:00.

My day begins in earnest. I look at my to-dos for the day, refine them if necessary and quickly check with my team if there are any bottlenecks I need to resolve. Once all that's sorted, I go to a client meeting with one of the associates.

We spend our time in the car discussing what we need to tell the client about the document we need to finalise for the presentation tomorrow.

I then go to the client's finance department, picking up another associate on the way to syndicate our financial projections that are absolutely imperative for the analysis we are working on.

I am late for a conference call—this time with another client about a software solution that a vendor is presenting. I am expected to join to help them decide whether this is something they should consider.

I now have a whole series of calls to attend to: first my engagement director (ED) for an update and our plan for the next day, then the staffing department to ask for one more team member. It's a difficult call, but I conclude it successfully. I remember suddenly that I haven't called my wife and if I want to make sure that she doesn't divorce me, I better do that. I conclude that successfully as well.

Next I call travel to check flights for my recruiting trip and then realise I'm starving!

I grab a quick lunch and decide to have a team meeting straight after lunch for a quick update on work and deadlines, et al.

I conduct a team debrief and work out what needs to be done for the presentation the next day and what needs to be done in the less immediate future: split the work, assign roles and get on with making it happen!

I look at the overall document to decide how far we are from completion and send it across to the team with my comments.

Next I must follow up on a research request. I find the information I was looking for and spend the next hour and a half writing up a LOP (letter of proposal) for a client.

I decide to go back to the office to catch up on calls to audio/visual department and my team to follow up on the status of our document.

As soon as I get back to the office, I sit with my ED to discuss the presentation, show him the latest version and get his input.

I have a team problem-solving session to work out a particular analysis.I check my e-mails, reply to the important ones, set aside the less important and completely ignore the senseless ones.

Since I am in Dubai, I go home to have dinner with the kids. I then finalise my LOP in time for the conference call from the United States that I need to participate in. Once that is over, I take a last look at my e-mails, send the final ones out…and at midnight it's time to turn in.