HISMD: OB/GYN at Midsize Private Practice

In office. 2 kids (7yo and 9-month-old). Partner (WFH with bimonthly travel). Tennessee. 36.

Each Thursday, the “How I Structure My Day” series features 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. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do!

Before we get to the good stuff…

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The Snapshot

• Partner: Yes (WFH with bimonthly travel)

• Children: Yes – 2 kids (7yo and 9-month-old)

• Tennessee

• In office

• 36

Typical Morning:

• 630AM alarm (hit snooze more than I should)

• Get myself ready (involves scrubs and minimal makeup/hair)

• 7/715 AM get baby out of crib and do breakfast and help 7yo get ready for school

• 730AM nanny arrives

• 745AM leave for work (if I’m on time!)

• 820AM 7yo leaves for school-we carpool and switch off with another family-my husband does this when he is home

Morning "Make Life Easier" Hacks

• When we’re both home it’s divide and conquer. I do the baby and my husband gets our 7yo ready for the day.

• When he’s traveling, I wake up earlier and prep lunch and anything else I can the night before.

Transition into Work Mode

• This is a hard question to answer because I think one of the toughest parts of my job is that it blends into personal time a lot. We tend to get contacted at all times pertaining to work-this may be the hospital staff calling for a quick clarification or a clinic staff asking about a patient or a patient texting if they happen to have your contact (I do not give my personal number out but some people have it for other reasons prior to becoming patients). For this reason, going into work mode is pretty automatic especially after you’ve completed a pretty grueling training program. I think the harder part is getting out of work mode.

What my work day looks like

• 8-845AM Round at hospital

• 9AM Start clinic and see patients until usually around 4-5pm (depending on how many are scheduled and if the day is running on time).

• Depending on when I finish, I generally spend from 4/430-5/530 to finish charting, sending in meds, answering patient cases and reviewing labs.

• My days are WIDELY variable depending on when surgery is scheduled or when my patients deliver their babies! I may have 730AM surgery so I have to start earlier or I may have surgery scheduled throughout the day. If I have to leave the office to go to a delivery, my patients are offered to be seen by a partner, wait for me or reschedule.

Lunch/Snacks

• If we have lunch or I brought lunch and I have time, I’ll eat and chart for 20-30 minutes between morning and afternoon clinic.

Breaks

• Our schedule has a lunch break but that usually is spent finishing morning clinic and then charting while I eat if I’m not in surgery or at the hospital.

Leaving work

• I try to leave the office by 5 (no later than 530 if I can help it) so I am home by 530-6. This doesn’t happen when I am at the hospital for an unexpected surgery or delivery so it’s not unusual to be home a lot later than this but I do my best. I am on call (home call but we are called in on about 75-80% of our call nights) one night per week and every fifth weekend.

After work/evening hours

• My husband usually does the cooking if he is home

• 530/6 Dinner and nighttime routine-may include sports, playing outside, reading books/finishing homework etc

• 7PM baby’s bath time then bedtime, 7yo showers and then gets until 8PM for screen time

• 8PM 7 yo bedtime

• 830-1030PM wind down time, clean up kitchen, prep for the following day, watch TV with hubs, read in bed

• 1030PM sleep

Evening Non-Negotiables

• Clean up the kitchen and read or watch TV to wind down

Afternoon/evening “make life smoother” tips

• Nothing groundbreaking. Having the most helpful partner makes our lives run smoothly. I’m not going to lie, it’s tough when he’s traveling!

Sharing the load with a partner

• For us it’s all about divided responsibilities.

• He does A LOT of the leg work because he works from home and is more available so cooking and drop offs/pickups are usually covered by him.

• I do a lot of the planning/ordering/organizing etc and try to add every detail I can do our shared calendar down to any social event/appointment/kid activity etc.

Things you do for fun/during the week

• Long walks with my dog, my family or my mom.

• Social events with our closest friends on most weekends

Exercise/Body Movement

• Not as much as I should. Mostly walking or running a few times a week right now. Before my last pregnancy I loved CycleBar and I’m trying to fit that back in soon!

Outsourcing

• Everything I can.

• This is where we make it work for us. I know it is absolutely not feasible or even desired for a lot of families-but for us, we spend so much time away from our kids (him traveling or me at work) that I really hate to spend my time at home trying to do laundry or clean my house. I have a housekeeper who comes twice per week and does all of our cleaning, laundry and puts it away and generally helps keep things put away. I do NOT do well with chaos so this really helps me keep my sanity when I can’t be there to keep the house cleaned up.

• We also have a yard service and a dog walker that comes on days that neither of us can take him.

Anything Else the Sharer Wants to Share

• I’ve spent a lot of time in the past feeling guilty about the amount of help that we hire or get from family when needed, but I’ve come to realize that you just have to figure out what works for your family. We work hard; and for us it’s okay to use the benefits of that hard work to be able to get the help we need in order to better enjoy our life!

That’s a wrap for this one!

Thank you so much to this woman for generously sharing. These publish every Thursday!

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 3-day program.

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