Activist and consultant Paul Taylor starts his day with an espresso at home before going for a long walk in his west-end neighbourhood.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
“I wake up at an absolutely ludicrous hour,” says Paul Taylor, a lifelong activist and the co-managing director of the Toronto-based Evenings & Weekends Consulting.
He sets his alarm for four but naturally rises between three and four o’clock in the morning – including on weekends.
He starts his day at the espresso machine. After having coffee and a banana, he takes a one-and-a-half to two-hour walk in his west-end neighbourhood.
“I have three or four routes that I alternate,” Taylor says. “I just walk and really think. I love walking around when no one else is really out; it really gives me some perspective that I think not everyone gets to see. I just clear my mind and think about anything unresolved that I’ve been tossing around in my head.” On his way back home, he’ll sometimes stop at Pavao Meats & Deli or Brockton Village Bakery. Once he gets home, he has breakfast, showers, watches an episode of The National or House of the Dragon from the night before and then preps lunch and/or dinner.
“It’s one thing that some of my clients are often surprised that I do because by the time I start work or we’re in some sort of meeting, I already have something cooking.” Then his actual workday starts at nine o’clock. Taylor says there are two main things that motivate him each morning.
For Taylor, whose work centres around driving social impact, these quiet mornings are an act of self-care.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
One is making an impact. He co-founded Evenings & Weekends Consulting with his friend Laëtitia Eyssartel in 2022 after more than a decade of leading non-profit organizations and running twice to be a Member of Parliament in Parkdale-High Park.
“One of the things my mother taught me – and that I think is especially important as a Black boy who grew up in Toronto – is that I could do anything,” he says. “But it won’t happen on its own. I’ve got to do what needs doing. I want to use my time on this planet well to advance positive change.”
The other? How important it is to take care of ourselves.
While Taylor’s work can be heavy at times – he collaborates with organizations like the United Nations Refugee Agency and OPSEU to advance progressive change and drive social impact – Evenings & Weekends has a four-day workweek, and they limit their working time to regular nine to five work hours.
“I wake up at this ungodly hour, but I’m not working into the evenings. I’m not working over the lunch break. It’s really important to make sure that I’m finding ways to centre joy and rest and care,” he says.
Those early mornings, says Taylor, are time he claims for just himself.
“It’s me time,” he says. “I just feel like we’re doing a deep disservice to ourselves and to the causes that we care about when we don’t make sure that we’re showing up in a good way by prioritizing our health.”
