Inspired by The SHU Box, I’m doing a day-in-the-life post. Today was not a typical day, in the sense that my 5- and 3-year-old had the day off from school. Our nanny usually starts work at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays since she’s taking a class those mornings. This works great when the 3-year-old has school from 9 to noon those days, but these schedules don’t overlap perfectly. So I took the AM shift today. Yet I still wound up working a full work day. Time is funny that way. I did many of the things I would have on a typical day, just moved around a bit. Here’s what today, Thursday, looked like:
5:55-6:30 – sort of wake up, drift in and out, think about life, finally get up at 6:15 and shower.
6:30-7:30 – work, mostly, with 2 of 3 kids waking up in there. They watched a TV show (hubby on a call at 7)
7:30-8 – breakfast with 2 of 3 kids.
8-8:30 – breakfast with the other sleepyhead, plus husband. Supervise everyone getting ready (the kids, that is).
8:30-8:40 – wait for bus with 7-year-old.
8:40-9:05 – pack up gym bag, hang out, email, get in car with 5- and 3-year-old.
9:05-9:55 – drive to Y, stop at Wawa on way to get donuts for kids (ok, and me too) and eat them in Y parking lot. We had to park a long ways away. The Y was packed at 9:45 a.m. I know this is the case from the other times I’ve been there then, and yet it always surprises me. Check kids into (crowded) playroom.
9:55-10:30 – run on treadmill. Slowly, but still running at 31 weeks.
10:30-11:30 – get kids, change them into swimsuits, go swimming for 30 minutes, change out of swimsuits, to car.
11:30-12:05 – bring 5-year-old to playdate, drive home. En route, call husband and find out he went to 7-year-old’s class for math game day. We’d prepped 7-year-old for possibility that neither of us could come (DH had meeting; I had other kids) but I guess the meeting moved or something. So that was nice.
12:05-12:25 – nanny arrives, lunch with her and 3-year-old
12:25-3:25 – work. Turn in revised manuscript of Their Own Sweet Time to editor. Good to get that back off my desk again!
3:25 -3:45 – go get 5-year-old at nearby playdate.
3:45-5:15 – work: prepping 3 Fast Company pieces for next week, answering emails, figuring out pricing for ebook of novel ($4.99?)
5:15-5:30 – say hello to 7-year-old, drive to nearby library.
5:30-7 – work in library. Some NaNoWriMo (3400 words), approve a page proof, etc.
7-7:30 – drive home, scrounge around for food for my dinner (everyone else has eaten). Decide on breakfast-for-dinner: eggs, bacon, bagel with smoked salmon.
7:30-8 – baths for 3 kids, jammies.
8-8:15 – read to 3-year-old and put her to bed.
8:15 – 9 – work while husband reads to 7- and 5-year-olds. Spend a few minutes posting this.
9-10 – the plan is to relax and read, though to be honest I may wind up following the immigration debate on Twitter. Social media is addictive that way.
In other news: Anandi, who comments here as ARC, and who runs the Papercraft Lab, is offering a class starting January 1st on how to organize your digital photos. This class runs 14 days, and features a daily assignment that should have you in photo bliss by January 15. Or at least not living in fear that you’ll lose your phone and 95% of your kids’ baby photos simultaneously. Visit this link to check it out.
Photo: No Scrabble today, but this game happened last night.
Thanks so much for the shout out for my Photo Organization Project 🙂
These Day in the Life posts always seem so *packed* when I read them, but I’m guessing most peoples’ days look like this, even mine.
Do you just do a regular day of time tracking to get this, or is this a less detailed version? I’d like to get in the habit of tracking my time semi-regularly but I always get derailed, forget, etc. and it’s nearly impossible to reconstruct later 🙁
@ARC – no problem! I probably track my time once every quarter or so. Nothing too intense — I think I’m pretty cognizant of the rhythm of my life at this point. Sometimes I track because I’m curious, like the week when my kids were all gone this summer. What would that look like? But yes, time is almost impossible to reconstruct closely later. That’s why I take all articles in which people describe some sort of daily routine with a grain of salt. My guess is that it doesn’t look like that every day.
I love Day in the Life posts. I’m not sure why.
I really need to track for a week or so (not next week because its so atypical but soon). I feel that I’m not doing enough good stuff. Not sure what it is I am spending my time on…
@Arden – I love seeing how people spend their time too. That’s why I write about this topic! I’m trying to schedule in the good stuff first. Sometimes it works better than others…
the photo organization course is tempting! (mine are a messssss).
as you probably gathered, i find these fascinating as well. i find i learn about how i spend my OWN time when i do these logs every once in a while.
You should take the class 😉 But seriously, if you have questions, there’s a ‘contact’ link on the page Laura linked to that will email me directly.
I like the day-in-the-life posts – but I’m fascinated by all things related to tracking how people spend time, so makes sense! 🙂