HISMD: Marketing & Operations Director, Small Business Selling Niche Tax Training
Married. 20-month-old & pregnant with second. Hybrid (2d WFH, 2d in office). United Kingdom. 35.
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: Yes (he’s a chef, so works most weekends & lots of evenings)
Children: Yes (20-months, second is due in November)
Hybrid: 2 days WFH, 2 days in office
UK
35
Typical Morning
Have an alarm set for 7 on work days.
If it's in office:
I'll get up and dressed, pack my bag and grab breakfast to take on the bus.
My husband is in charge of my son those mornings, so I just take care of my face.
I'm rarely one to leap out of bed, so 40 minutes is about right just to get myself out the house.
On the bus at 7.40, a short walk to the office and at my desk by 8.30.
On a wfh day:
I often snooze my alarm or scroll on my phone til my son wakes up, any time between 7 and 8.30.
I give him a bottle snuggled in bed, then we get dressed and eat breakfast.
Either my MiL comes to take care of him, or I drop him off at my brother's nearby, and I try to be at my desk by 9.15.
Morning "Make Life Easier" Hacks
No extras in the morning, just the basics of what we each need - food, clothes, bags packed.
Chores etc can wait, any extra minutes we spend playing or snuggling 😊
I'm not a morning person, so I'd always rather get the extra sleep!
We did a very gentle sleep training program with my son, which I'm sure is part of the reason why he sleeps later than me!
Transition into Work Mode
I spend a few minutes playing the daily games on LinkedIn and catching up on a few blogs (Ask A Manager, Laura Vanderkam and Cap Hill Style are my favs) before I open my inbox.
What my work day looks like
Because we're a small company most days are usually light on meetings.
I spend a lot of time on project management across the company, reviewing our marketing strategy, giving feedback on projects, hashing out new ideas and next steps etc.
If I can I try to cluster meetings together and keep longer stretches for deeper work.
I ask for people to send me weekly lists of things for review rather than sending them ad hoc, which helps to keep that work contained.
My boss and colleagues often send me ideas and suggestions to include in our future plans and strategies, and digesting what to do with these is one of the things I find more challenging - I'm trying to keep a running list of "potential ideas" but it's tough to know whether something brand new is worth doing in place of something that's somewhat effective - figuring out those trade offs with such limited resources always feels like a difficult compromise.
Lunch
I usually eat around 12.30 - I grab lunch from the kitchen or the shops near our office. I typically eat at my desk while reading the news. Sometimes my husband sorts me out some lunch to take to work, which is always a treat.
Breaks
Only my lunch break, usually. If I have meetings all day I make sure to leave time for a comfort break, but it's rare that I'd have to.
Leaving work
In the office I finish at 4, which lets me commute home for 5ish.
When my MiL has my son I finish at 4, when my brother has him, he gets dropped off about 5.30
Transition out of work mode
If I'm on the bus I'll scroll Instagram or play games on my phone. If I'm at home, there's not really a transition. I shut down my computer and walk downstairs into the chaos 😂
After work hours
If I have the energy I'll shower, pick up around the house, do laundry.
Occasionally I'll do some work if I have hours to make up.
Sometimes my husband and I have dinner together and watch TV if he's home too.
He's picking up a lot of the slack around the house while I'm so exhausted!
Nightime non-negotiables
One of us puts the dishwasher on most nights
We try and get a load of laundry washed and hung up to dry most evenings too (most people in the UK don't use a dryer!)
Afternoon/evening “make life smoother” tips
For us I think it's really just about prioritising what matters, and being honest about what's "enough". Our house is clean enough, we have enough clean clothes and dishes, we have enough food in the fridge for tomorrow, etc.
I have autism and ADHD (still waiting on formal diagnoses), and my husband has chronic pain, so we're never going to have a perfectly clean tidy house - rather than trying to fight that reality, we've set our own standards and we don't worry about what other people's are doing.
Sharing the load with a partner
I'm not sure I'd recommend it but our approach is mostly to ignore everything that's not a "today" problem until it becomes unavoidable 😂 It can be messy and chaotic, but it's been 3 years and nothing horrible has happened yet. I'm lucky that I didn't absorb any cultural conditioning that makes me feel like my housekeeping is a reflection of my value as a person!
For childcare, I definitely do more, and get less time to myself, but that's because I work regular hours and my husband doesn't. He is in charge while I'm in the office, as he's arranged to have two fixed days off.
When we're both home we split up responsibilities based on who feels more up to it (historically that's usually me, but I've had to tap out more often since I've been pregnant)
Things you do for yourself/fun during the week
For about six months before I fell pregnant I was getting good at doing more "hobbies" and less scrolling. I love cross stitch and jigsaw puzzles, and growing flowers in our little garden. At the moment I'm doing a bit more reading (library ebooks are so good) and giving into the dopamine hit of scrolling Instagram and playing puzzle games on my phone. One day I'd like to get back to the gym (I used to be a competitive powerlifter!) and join a choir, but not til my kids are a bit older and less exhausting!
Outsourcing
My mother in law cleans for us for an hour each week while my son is napping.
We use grocery delivery right now because I'm so exhausted.
We are lucky to have my parents nearby too so they provide a lot of back up/flexible childcare too.
We don't have the budget for more cleaning or childcare on a regular basis - life would be so much easier if we did! I'm hoping to get a few half-days of support from a professional organizing service over the next few months to help us get on top of the clutter and get set up ready for our new baby!
Exercise/Body Movement
Three days a week I'll take my son for a walk in the buggy at lunchtime for about an hour when he'll nap.
Two days a week I walk half an hour as part of my commute.
Except for this first trimester I do a short gym work out once or twice a month. When this happens, I get up an hour early and use a gym that's on my route to work. This gives me time for about 40 minutes to do some weights, then get freshened up and grab breakfast en route to the office. It's not much but it makes me happy and that's enough!
Anything extra the sharer wants to share
I've only recently realized I have autism and ADHD, and I'm still waiting to be formally diagnosed. I'm only just at the beginning of figuring out how neurodivergence has affected my life and how to build better strategies to manage life in general. Therapy over the last 5-6 years has been instrumental in helping acknowledge and accept my limitations, overcome perfection paralysis and decide on what "good enough" looks like in my life. My house might be a mess but my mental health is not!
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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