HISMD: Fundraiser at a Large Private University

Solo Mom by Choice. 15mo son. Partner-free. Hybrid. New England. 37.

This "How I Structure My Day" series started with an Instagram post I made about my own life, which prompted a woman to ask if it would be possible to see how women working a more traditional, full-time 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: No

• Children: Yes – 15 months (I'm a solo mom; I had my son using a sperm donor, so I'm the only parent in his life currently)

• Hybrid: Requirement is 2 office days, though I'm usually in office 3-4 days. I also travel frequently for work.

• Location: New England

• Age: 37

Typical Morning

• 4:45 am - Alarm goes off. Drink water, eat a graham cracker, then get my work out in. I aim to work out M/T/Th/F, a mix of Peloton bike rides and strength workouts. W is my rest day, but I find it easiest to still get up early, and I use the time to do some chores around the house that have piled up.

• 5:45 am - Shower, put on makeup, dry hair, get dressed. I'm someone who needs to shower and "get ready" every day.

• 6:45 am - Unload dishwasher, scroll through social media if I have a few minutes before my son wakes up. Sometimes I eat a quick breakfast (yogurt and granola) depending on the day and our schedule (more on that below)

• 7:00 am - Get my son up. He is a fantastic sleeper and predictably stays in his crib with minimal whining until I get him up. I get him dressed, and then we read books while he has a cup of milk.

• 7:30 am - On M/W/F, my mom watches him. She lives ~25 min away. I drive him there, and she gives him breakfast. She's got her kitchen stocked for him. On T/Th, he goes to daycare, which is ~5 min from our house. On those days, I'll give him breakfast at home and eat with him. We leave for my mom's around 7:30; we leave for daycare closer to 8.

• 8/8:15ish am - I leave my mom's or daycare and either head to my house if it's a WFH day or the office.

• 8:30/8:45 ish am - Get my work day started.

Morning "Make Life Easier" Tips

• I prep as much as possible the night before - set up the coffee maker, pack my and my son's lunches and bags, lay out my workout gear and clothes I plan to wear to work the next day.

• Getting up early is also something I do to make my morning easier. I feel very stressed when I have to rush, so I'd rather wake up early and move at a calmer pace.

• I eat the same things for breakfast and lunch most days, and my son rotates through 2-3 options. It helps to not have to think of new ideas for what we'll eat.

• Having my mom's house stocked with food for him also helps so she can decide what to feed him on days when she watches him.

Transition into Work Mode

• I prefer not to have meetings scheduled first thing. I always feel behind the eight ball when it starts with a meeting instead of me sitting down to visualize the day.

• Truthfully, when I first sit down at my desk, I usually play Wordle and scroll through social media. But then I open the to-do list I made the day before, review the meetings I have on my calendar, and think through how I'm going to tackle everything.

A Workday Tends to Look Like

• My team is usually in T/Th, but I'll often go in on M and/or W too if there are meetings I'd rather attend in person.

• My office days tend to have more meetings because we try to do 1:1s in-person. Whenever possible, I try to book meetings for the afternoon hours since I'm a morning person and find it easier to do focused work early in the day.

• I block Monday mornings and Friday afternoons on my calendar. Monday mornings are a good time for me to sort out priorities for the week ahead, and Friday afternoons are a good time for me to take stock of what happened that week and tie up loose ends.

• I also use focus time in Outlook to make sure my calendar doesn't get too overwhelmed with meetings.

• My role is very email-heavy. It can be overwhelming. I'm not great at having dedicated time to process/respond to email. I often end up dipping in and out of it throughout the day. But I've set up filters for newsletters to get them out of my inbox (and truthfully, I never go read them, so I perhaps should unsubscribe!), and I've gotten more comfortable with not immediately responding to non-priority emails.

• I travel somewhat regularly for work. Sometimes it's a day-trip to a nearby city. Sometimes it's an overnight somewhere that's a train or short plane ride away. Other times, it's 2-3 nights away in a farther flung place. I spend that time meeting with prospective donors to the university. I've been doing this travel for the last 8 years, but this last year, I've had to navigate doing it as a mom. It takes a good amount of effort to prepare to be away from my son (since I'm a solo mom, there's not another parent at home to watch him, so he stays at my mom's house while I'm away). But while I'm away, it feels like a little bit of a vacation (ha!). I watch TV in bed in the hotel room at night and get to savor meals in restaurants.

Lunch/Snacks

• I am a creature of habit and have lunch every day around noon. If I'm home, I'll make myself a turkey sandwich. I usually bring the same sandwich to work, though sometimes I'll use lunch as an opportunity to go out with a co-worker and catch up.

• I usually have a granola bar mid-morning, and when I'm in the office, I raid one of my co-workers candy bowls in the afternoon :)

Breaks

• I don't. Before I had my son, I used to be better at taking a walk during the day. I'm not sure why that fell off, just something I didn't pick back up after I came back from maternity leave.

Leaving Work

• If I'm picking up my son at my mom's, I try to wrap around 4:30. If I'm getting him at daycare, I usually end around 5. There's just a lot more traffic if I'm going to my mom's.

• If work is particularly busy, I'll sometimes work in the evening, but I try to make that a rare occurrence. As a solo parent, it's just me doing dinner, bedtime, cleaning up, and prepping for the next day. And given that I wake up pretty early, working in the evening hours just doesn't work for me if I want to get a decent night of sleep.

Transitioning from Work to Personal Mode

• I usually listen to an audio book on my drive home. Before having a kid, I would sometimes come home and stress about work-related things. I don't have the brain space for that anymore! A toddler is a great distraction for any work anxiety.

Typical Afternoon/Evening

• 5:30 pm - Get home with my son and make dinner. And by "make," I mean I'm usually reheating some leftovers or making something easy, like a grilled cheese. Cooking is not my strong suit. I'll try to make something on the weekends that we can have during the week. On days when my mom watches my son, she'll sometimes take pity on me and make dinner for us.

• 5:45 pm - Sit down for dinner.

• 6:00 pm - Clean up from dinner, play with my son.

• 6:30 pm - Bath time, get my son in PJs, read with him.

• 7:15 pm - Leave my son's room for the night. More clean up, back bags for the next day, lay out clothes.

• 8:00 pm - Have a snack (I have such a sweet tooth and need a treat every night), scroll on my phone, catch up on texts to friends.

• 8:30/8:45 - Wash face, get in PJs, get into bed. Ideally read a book, but sometimes, I mindlessly scroll.

• 9:30/9:45 - Lights out and go to bed.

Time between kid bedtime and your bedtime

• I'm a morning person, so I've learned that the evening hours are not my time to "take on the world." I use the time to get the house back in order (clean up toys, load dishwasher, fold laundry) and prep our stuff for the day ahead.

• I'll do some work on the rare occasion when there are urgent priorities I can't meet during work hours, but I try not to make it a habit. I have trouble sleeping if I do work too late into the night.

• Ideally, I'm reading a novel before bed as a way to wind down.

Nightime non-negotiables

• Clean up the kitchen

• Run the dishwasher

• Prep the coffee maker

• Pack my and my son's bags for the next day

• Lay out clothes for the next day

• Get myself set up for my workouts

Afternoon/Evening “Make Life Easier” Tips

• I have my phone set up to "go dark" between 5:30-7 so that I can be present with my son.

• I also have a nightly checklist on my phone that I use to make sure I've done all the things to prep for the day ahead. You'd think I'd remember to do something like make my lunch, but sometimes I forget. There are a lot of things!

• I have a robot vacuum set to run every night because there are just so many crumbs when my son eats.

• I also love using the delay wash function on my washing machine. I'll throw a load in at night so that it's ready for me to throw in the dryer in the morning.

What it’s like to be a solo parent

• I ended up pursuing solo motherhood after my marriage ended when I was 35 and my ex and I just couldn't get on the same page about having kids (I wanted them, he wasn't sure/was fairly sure he didn't). I never imagined I'd have a baby on my own using a donor, but now I can't imagine it any other way.

• In a lot of ways, I feel like my personality is uniquely suited for solo parenthood. If anyone else is interested in knowing more about my path, I'm happy to connect with them. [This is Kelly: If you’re interested, message me, and I can connect you to this generous sharer.]

• There are moments where it's tough not to have a partner. I think it requires a lot more effort for me to travel for work or get together with friends for the evening because I'm not leaving my son at home with someone who lives with him and knows his routine.

• But in other ways, I think sometimes it's simpler to not have a partner. I'm the only decision-maker, so I don't have to talk things through with another person (and I'm Type A and like to be in control, so that suits me).

• It can be a lot to be the one doing it all, but it's also all I've known, so it's my normal.

• But I should be clear--I don't have a co-parent, but I have a lot of help from my mom and my sister. My mom provides a lot of free child care during work hours, and my sister does the same on evenings and weekends. In a lot of ways, I sometimes feel like I have more support than I would if I had a fully employed co-parent but didn't live near family.

Time for fun during the week

• Being the solo parent of toddler doesn't leave a lot of space for time for myself. But I prioritize my workouts, and I make an effort to get together with friends a couple times a month. I sometimes try to do that during work hours when I have child care.

• I'm not very good at letting myself relax. I say I'm going to sit and watch a show or read a book, but I end up trying to do something "productive" instead, like research what shoes I should buy for my toddler. And I have zero hobbies. But this is a phase!

Outsourcing

• I outsource childcare twice a week (and get it for free from my mom the other three days!). I have cleaners come every other week. I also outsource my lawn care and mowing. After this winter, I realize I also need to outsource snow removal.

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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