HISMD: Chief Financial Officer, Large Public Sector Organization

Partner. 2yo kid & pregnant with second. In office. Texas.

This "How I Structure My Day" Series started from an Instagram post I did about my own life, under which a woman asked if it would be possible to see how women working a more full-time, traditional job did it. I asked women to share, and, man, have people responded. The goal is to show how women from different industries, with and without kids, with and without partners, with family living with/near them and not, wfh to 1+ hour commutes, etc. structure their day. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I do!

The Snapshot

• Partner: Yes (Lawyer, hybrid)

• Children: Yes (2yo & Pregnant)

• In Office

• Texas

A typical morning

• 6:30am: Wake up, hit snooze. Check work email.

• 6:40-7:30: Shower, get ready for work.

• 7:00: Kiddo wakes up, husband gets them ready for the day (assuming husband WFH). Change clothes.

• 7:15ish: Kiddo wanders back and forth between me and husband, taking important treasures from our nightstands to each of us.

• 7:30: I eat breakfast, usually kiddo eats too. Pack up both my and kiddo lunch (lunches made night before). Make coffee, take a million pregnancy-related pills.

• 7:45-8:00: Fight with kiddo about shoes and hair. Usually bribe with tv.

• 8:00-8:30: I drive kiddo to daycare, drop them off, and go to work.

• 8:30: sign in.

• Usually, first meeting at 9 AM

• Notes: If husband is going into office, I get up earlier to relieve him by 7:20. He gets ready and helps us load car at 8. Usually then I'd shower and do my hair night before.

Morning "Make Life Easier" Hacks

• Always pack lunches night before. Ideally all on Sundays.

  • In busy seasons, I get Factor meals or another premade lunch service.

• I lay my clothes out on Sundays too. Depending on the meetings, I'm in a business suit, so I plan ahead for that.

  • I don't know why it takes me 45 minutes to get ready, but it always does.

  • I set 7 or 8 minute alarms to keep me moving

  • Note - I'm standing the whole time, not getting back in bed or doom scrolling.

  • This is a mystery to me - I don't think I'm high maintenance? 10 min shower, 5 min makeup, 7 min hair.

• I knew I'd be mostly in office when we moved. We picked a home very close to my office, and daycare is halfway between.

Transition into Work-Mode

• Honestly, it’s rough. Coffee, hopefully having 30 minutes to ease in before my first meeting. It’s only a 4-minute drive from daycare to my office, and often I wish it was a little longer so I could focus in.

What my work day looks like

• We're in a busy season right now. Meetings. So many meetings.

• I've tried 45-minute meetings, to add breaks in between.

• I have a calendar hold from 8-10, 12-1, and 3-5 for deep work - but it rarely happens.

• Most days I have about 5-7 meetings, short lunch, maybe 30 minutes for deep work.

• I have an executive assistant who manages my calendar, and acts as a gatekeeper with my time. I usually work until 5:30 or 6, closing out emails.

• After the busy season, I will be ruthless in canceling or shortening meetings. We recently staffed up, so delegating meetings when possible.

Lunch

• This pregnancy I'm STARVING in the morning. So I eat a big breakfast, then a snack around 10:30. Usually lunch around 12:30, and I graze on snacks in the afternoon. I eat a smaller dinner.

• Lunch is blocked, but often shortened to 30 min

Leave Work & Transition Out of Work-Mode

• Leave work around 5:30 or 6. That isn't the norm in my office. Most leave around 5, but my busy season is now.

• Husband picks up kiddo from daycare. So I have a 15-20 minute drive home alone. Usually, I listen to a podcast, call a friend, or listen to music.

After work hours

• 6:00pm: Kiddo wants dinner the moment she gets home, so our family meals are weird right now. Husband gives kiddo whatever she will eat, at a toddler tower.

• 6:15: I get home, give a quick hug and change into comfy clothes. If our dinner is ready, we eat. If not, we tag-team dinner prep and playing with kiddo.

• 6:30-7: play with kiddo

• 7-7:20: Kiddo gets screentime. Elmo, Bluey, etc. We cuddle and doomscroll (or I read kindle on iPhone)

• 7:20-7:40: I give kiddo bath. We used to switch, but I liked it and he didn't. Now husband cleans up kitchen/house/preps for tomorrow.

• 7:40: bedtime routine. I love this, and it will change with a 2nd kid. We both do lotion, pjs, brush hair, to get her ready for bed. A sweet family moment.

• 7:50-8: We take turns putting her down. Kiddo LOVES to sleep, so it’s pretty easy. Read books, put her down.

• 8-9:30: Sign back in if I have to work. Usually watch tv and relax with husband.

  • I can't get motivated to do personal admin stuff then. I hate it. I try to cram it into a slower work day or on the weekend.

• 8:30: Since pregnant, I go laydown by 8:30. Whenever I get in bed: bedtime routine (brush teeth, lotions, pjs). Read on kindle, on dark mode 9:30/10 lights out.

Nighttime Non-Negotiables

• 1) Bathtime with kiddo. We added it nightly cause it made the transition so much better. I also brush teeth and wash my face then.

• 2) Run dishwasher every night

• 3) Clothes laid out

• 4) Lunches packed

• 5) Kitchen cleaned up (not heavy duty clean)

• 6) Reading

Afternoon/evening “make life smoother” tips

• Prep as much as possible on weekends, or in batches. Meal planning/meal prep.

• Husband cooks twice during week, I cook once, usually we have leftovers for another meal or two, and then we order in.

Sharing the load with a partner

• Pick your spouse wisely :) We met in our late 30s. We both had lived solo for so many years, that moving in together felt like a load off of both of our shoulders. I had seen his place and knew we were similar levels of clean - which is really important.

• Lean into your strengths.

  • He loves to cook, I hate it. But after 2 years he didn't want to do 100%, so I added in cooking once a week and got the What To Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking substack, which helps a ton.

  • The holiday magic-making stuff, he doesn't care about and is along for the ride. I care, so I organize it.

• Husband is so hands on in with kiddo. Due to an accident when kiddo was 18 months, I was laid up for 2 months, and he had to take on 100% of kiddo duty, plus take care of me. I didn't have to train him how to do any of it (except her hair). We already both did a lot. I am so lucky. We both look back on those times as really hard, but I'm seriously so lucky cause he talks about the hard time being us not doing stuff as a family. Not the amount of work he did.

• I like the Fair Play method, we haven't done it. We check in periodically about duties, and shift as needed. With a second kid, it may become more formalized.

• We give each other breathers over the weekends, giving the other one a 3-4 hour break. Again, we'll see how it changes with another kid.

Outsourcing

• Yes. So much. Honestly I will outsource as much as I can to have more time with kids and husband.

• Housecleaner: every other week. I've had the same one since I was single. WORTH IT.

• Daycare: Open 7:30-6, we use it 8:15-5:15.

• Babysitters: Usually once a weekend. Either daycare teachers or local teenagers. We are low stakes with our babysitters - make sure our kid is alive, and I'm not worried if she got the wrong food or you left the lights on in her room or broke a glass.

• Instacart/curbside pick up for groceries

• Too much Amazon

• Meal prep: Busy weeks, we get premade meals from Whole Foods or Central Market. I get premade lunches from Factor or a local company.

• Night Nanny: Kiddo 1, we got a night nanny for 3 nights a week from week 5-7 when husband when back to work. With this one, we'll do it between weeks 3-5 probably (family is there first two weeks). Now I get how short that period of time really is, when babies don't sleep. You just have to get through the first 8 weeks and it gets a lot more manageable.

Exercise

• Not enough. Maybe a walk or two a week. I have a Peloton bike collecting dust (I canceled the membership for a while).

Anything else the sharer wants to share

• Family support: We don't have any family in our city. We do have a lot of family support who love to watch our kid overnight, with a lot of planning. So we try to do a hotel night or small getaway once a quarter, and a longer couple's trip annually.

• Date nights: Weekly, or every other week. Have also done 4:30-6pm date night and picked kiddo up right when daycare closes. I pushed us to do a date night when kiddo was 6 weeks old, and I'm glad cause we got over the babysitter jitters quickly.

• Friend time: a couple times a month, one of us will meet friends for dinner, the other will handle bedtime. We are both really outgoing, so this is important to us.

• Home Assistant: I think this is the next outsourcing we will add.

• Shared calendar and shared notes: Calendar for all events the other needs to know about or cover. Shared notes for groceries, gifts, kid health info, tv ideas, etc.

• Have Money: This is so disheartening, but so many of our big childcare/parenting issues seem to be solved by having money - to buy time, convenience, expertise, etc. If we did this 10 years ago, we wouldn't have the resources we do now. I wish I'd met him earlier and we had kids in our 30s, but that just isn't our story. (Maybe something weird to add - but my husband and I talk about this all the time - at our marriage counseling retreat, virtually all the example conflicts would be solved by "hiring a housecleaner").

• Second kid: our world is about to implode with the addition of another kid. We do so much all three of us. We'll be switching to divide and conquer probably (me and baby; husband and kiddo). We'll figure it out. But so much of what we are doing will change in this scenario. Also, I'm a bear in 3rd trimester. I'm hoping this one will be better.

That’s a wrap for this one!

Thank you so much to this woman for generously sharing.

A reminder of the ground rules to ensure women continue wanting to share about their days and feel safe doing so.

• Encouraging comments always welcome!

• If you have questions or even hang-ups about what someone shared, you are welcome to ask a question for the sharer in the same kind, genuinely curious way you would if you were looking at that woman in her eyes. She might respond through me.

• If comments are judge-y or mean-spirited, I reserve the right to delete comments. I can handle being criticized about my own work here (and even still, to a degree – I’m also a person), but I go into full mama bear mode when people come after my people – including women who are being vulnerable and sharing in the first place.

• Thanks to the vast majority of people who are so kind!

New here? Welcome!

I’m Kelly Nolan, an attorney-turned-time management strategist and mom of two. I teach the Bright Method, a realistic time management system designed for professional working women. In addition to this fun new series, I share bite-sized time management strategies on Instagram. Thanks for being here!

After experiencing overwhelm as a young patent litigator in Boston, I figured out a time management system to help me show up in the ways that I wanted to at work and at home – without requiring my brain to somehow magically remember it all. I now teach other professional working women how to manage their personal, family, and career roles with less stress and more calm clarity using realistic time management strategies. My system, the Bright Method, has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, and my work has been published in Forbes, Fast Company, Business Insider, and more. Learn more on my website, come learn bite-sized strategies with me on Instagram, or jump into my free 5-day program.

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