I love reading "A Day in the Life" posts from other bloggers, and I wanted to share mine. My job is a little weird, since I travel almost every other week, but I wanted to share my daily routine with anyone who's curious what it looks like when I'm not traveling and am working from home.
•••
8:30 a.m. My first alarm for the day goes off. I say first because I hate waking up to begin with, but I especially hate waking up and rolling out of bed right away. I set multiple alarms – there's one for actually waking up and one for physically hauling myself out of bed.
9 a.m. OK, OK, I'm physically up. Probably. I probably snoozed my alarm at least three times. I check my work email, first thing's first, and take Theo outside for his first (short) walk of the morning. Since I've been working from home almost always if I'm not traveling, I pour a bowl of cereal and settle down on the couch or at the kitchen island to start my work day.
I also feed Theo and give him something to chew on or play with while I work. Patrick sleeps later in the mornings because he stays up later than me, so I'm on Theo duty in the mornings. This has become a lot less stressful lately – when he was a brand new addition to the household, it was horrible.
9:30 a.m. My mornings when I'm not traveling pretty much looks like this: Check email. Work on feedback reports or training materials. Repeat. My email is my to do list most of the time. On Mondays, there are usually a lot of things to filter through. I also check my personal email and clear it out at this time.
My emails could look something like...
• Story coaching for reporters.
• Headline help or brainstorming requests.
• Project planning – if a newsroom has a bigger series going live.
• CrowdTangle training or dashboard requests. (This is one of our main social media analytics tools.)
• Schedule and/or travel changes.
• Preparation for our next trip.
Or all of the above.
10 a.m. Theo goes outside once an hour. I won't repeat this every hour, but it's pretty standard. Sometimes we forget because he's asleep or chewing on a bone, but for the most part, it's once per hour until after dinner.
10:30 a.m. Since I have a work call at 11 a.m., I hurry up and shower, brush my hair and try to make myself look like an adult.
11 a.m. Almost every morning at 11 a.m., I have a check-in call with my team. There are three of us – one is stationed in Vermont, one in Fort Worth and then me in Charlotte, so we catch up on the day before and what's on our calendar first thing in the morning. Lately, though, at least one of the three of us is traveling.
11:30 a.m. Time to organize myself for the rest of my day. Sometimes, I do this the night before, but usually, I leave it for the morning once I've cleared my inbox, finished any super time sensitive tasks and had my morning call with my team. I manage all of my work and personal to dos using Trello and a priority-based system (I sort my tasks by must do, should do, would be nice to do and use labels and deadlines to keep me organized within those columns).
12 p.m. I grab a snack or eat a sandwich (or, let's be honest, eat a bowl of cereal that I forgot to pour for myself when I woke up) and pack my bag to head to Starbucks to work for a couple of hours. Patrick plays golf one or two times a week, and when he does, I usually go to Starbucks, to give Theo some kennel time – we're still trying to warm him up to his kennel – and to give me some quiet time.
12:05 p.m. I arrive at our way-too-close Starbucks and order a Violet Drink and settle down at a table by the window that has plenty of outlet availability and is only slightly wobbly. I probably end up working from Starbucks once or twice a week, and I earn enough stars from going on work trips that it's not outrageous. I plug in my noise-cancelling headphones, start playing the Hamilton soundtrack and get to work.
12:05 p.m. to 4 p.m. I chug away at my work, using Trello as my guide. By the end of the day, I usually try to completely knock out my Must Do and Should Do columns. Depending on the day and my mood, this works out great. On some days, it's more of a battle.
I do try to insert smaller "fun" tasks in between huge marathon tasks. So, if I have to finish a feedback report for a newsroom – which is a marathon task – I'll also put something like "Respond to blog comments" or "Post on Instagram" on the list. I give myself some small things to look forward to, and I feel more accomplished when I push them over to the COMPLETED card!
4 p.m. I look outside and it is pouring rain. Welp.
4:10 p.m. Still raining.
4:30 p.m. I don't like to leave Theo for more than five hours, so as soon as I see the rain has slowed down, I jump in the car and drive home.
4:40 p.m. Once I let the little man out, we walk around the apartment complex for 15-20 minutes and wait for Patrick to come home.
5 p.m. Patrick traveled a little farther for golf today so I start preheating the oven for enchiladas and boiling water for rice while I finish up my workday at the kitchen island. Theo is, inexplicably, asleep in the middle of the living room.
6 p.m. We eat dinner – enchiladas and cilantro rice, both from mixed stuff we buy at the grocery store and requiring very limited work on my part – and start watching one of our many shows we're in the middle of on Netflix. This time, it's Orange is the New Black, the new season. Holy heck, this season is bizarre.
6:30 p.m. It's time for Theo's long evening walk. The length of the walk depends on the weather and Theo's mood – read: is he being an ornery little shit? – but ideally, we try to be gone for at least 30 minutes. When he gets a little older and a little less wild, we'll start walking farther distances in the evening, possibly taking the trail behind the apartment complex.
7 to 11 p.m. We take Theo outside once an hour, and we also do his training sessions in the evening. Otherwise, I sit on the couch and read or work on my blog/Lularoe on the computer (or, more likely, play games on my iPad) while Patrick sits next to me and works or reads articles (or, more likely, plays this golf game on his phone).
11 p.m. I am usually asleep on my feet. We take Theo out one last time and then take him to bed. He sleeps in the human bed because we're weak willed. He stretches out between us, Pat starts playing The Office and I fall asleep within four minutes of my head hitting the pillow.
•••
And that's my day! What do you make part of your daily routine?
0 comments:
Post a Comment