A day in the life of a Twitch executive in Australia, who takes breaks to play Frisbee with his dog and sets aside an hour of ‘old man time’ with no screens before bed

Lewis Mitchell is the head of content for the Asia-Pacific region at Twitch, the live-streaming platform that draws more than 30 million visitors every day, according to the company.

Based in Sydney, Australia, he oversees a team of three people.

Mitchell — who’s in his mid-30s and moved to Australia from England when he was 15 — took a somewhat roundabout journey to working at Twitch. He originally wanted to be an animator but decided to go into coding instead, spending a few years as a developer before changing gears and going into radio broadcasting. 

As a gamer himself, Mitchell had been aware of Twitch, which was launched in 2011. But it was when he discovered Twitch Plays Pokémon — a social experiment on the live-streaming platform where more than a million players controlled a single character — that he knew he had to try and get a job there.

“It was the first time I’d seen a digital platform that was content-based around video games, and I’m just like, I have to work here,” Mitchell said.

He joined Twitch in May 2016 and started his current role as head of content while Sydney was in lockdown this spring.

Mitchell works from his home in the Wollongong area, about an hour south of Sydney. Here’s a look at his daily routine.

8 a.m. to 9 a.m: Mitchell starts his day drinking coffee on his balcony while he scrolls through Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, and news apps to catch up on current affairs.

Some “noisy but awesome” Kookaburras — a type of kingfisher bird native to Australia and New Guinea — often sit in the Jacaranda tree nearby, he said.

Mitchell said he’s appreciated being able to get more sleep while working from home in the pandemic. 

“If left to my own devices, I would absolutely be waking up at 11 o’clock and going to bed at like 1:00 in the morning,” he said. “But having that little bit of extra time has been really helpful.”

9 a.m. to 11 a.m: His work day kicks off with meetings with Twitch employees in the US.

“I’ll grab insights of high-level decisions during these meetings, then take them back to the APAC teams,” he said.

During the pandemic, Twitch has seen record numbers. In June 2020, the number of people streaming on Twitch in the Asia-Pacific region was double the year prior, according to the company. Last year, the total minutes viewed on Twitch grew to 1 trillion minutes.

11 a.m. to 1 p.m: Mitchell has a couple of hours of team meetings with the Asia-Pacific group and one-on-ones with country leads.

Twitch has 1,800 corporate employees around the world, according to a spokesperson for the company.

2 p.m. to 2:30 p.m: In the afternoon, he takes a break to take his Goldendoodle for a walk. Her name is Old Bean, but he and his wife just call her Beanie.

“She loves a Frisbee, but hasn’t mastered the art of dropping it yet, so we take two Frisbee’s for the bribery,” Mitchell said.

2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m: When they get back, Mitchell makes a sandwich for lunch – “usually in the presence of a hopeful dog looking for cheese,” he said.

3 p.m. to 5 p.m: He has more meetings in the afternoon, this time with the heads of departments in Asia Pacific to talk about how to improve the region for Twitch creators.

During these meetings, Mitchell stands and does some stretches.

Working from home in the pandemic, Mitchell said he’s learned the importance of investing in a good chair: He used to use gaming chairs but recently splurged on a Herman Miller office chair.

“I will say so far, it’s felt amazing,” he said. “My back is not hurting anywhere near as much.”

5 p.m. to 7 p.m: Mitchell spends the last couple hours of his day catching up with streamers and going through emails.

“I find it important to make sure I’m up-to-date with the type of content and tools people are utilizing the most to engage,” he said.

7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m: Mitchell fits in a workout, either a jog outside or in the small home gym he put together during the pandemic.

7:30 p.m: For dinner, he makes some burritos.

After dinner, Mitchell spends time with his wife and they watch TV together. “Highly recommend ‘The Hour,'” he said.

From about 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m, he finishes going through some emails and does any reading he needs to do for the rest of the week. 

11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m: Mitchell calls this his “old man time,” when he avoids looking at screens for the last hour before bed.

“I’ll get into my slippers and dressing gown, and sit in my old man chair,” he said.

He recently finished the works of fantasy writer Robin Hobb and has also been reading about stoic philosophy.