HISMD: Senior Manager Commercial, Fortune 10 Company

3 kids (10yo, 9yo & 6yo). Hybrid (M-Th in office; WFH Friday). Partner (M/F at home, T-Th in office). Houston, TX. Work Travel. Putting kid activities publicly on work calendar to model for others.

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 (FT engineer for Fortune 10 co; hybrid schedule: M/F at home, T-Th in office)

• Children: Yes – 10 (5th grade), 9 (3rd), 6 (K)

• Hybrid: In office M-Th; WFH Friday (have been hybrid since return post-pandemic)

• Houston, TX

Typical Days

• Friday WFH

  • 5:45am - Wake up, coffee + read for a bit

  • 6:30am - get kids up, make breakfast, fill water bottles, give daughter her daily meds, go up and down stairs multiple times to get kids ready for school, ask kids to hurry up 100 times

  • 7:30am - husband takes kids to school. I will check news, read some more, drink another coffee.

  • 8am - work for an hour - check emails, do anything small

  • 9am - go for a run/Barrys class.

  • 10/10:30 - start work.

  • In between meetings - do laundry, start dinner, go through mail, etc.

  • 3pm - kid pick up from school. Kids play/do homework if I have any more meetings, and Fridays are always pizza and movie nights!

• M-Th In Office

  • If working out:

    • 4:45am - wake up if exercising,

    • 5am workout class,

    • 6am get ready.

  • If not working out:

    • 5:30am wake up and get ready.

  • 6:30am: get kids up, make bfast, pack backpacks, lunches, etc.

  • 7:30am: kid drop off

  • 8am: arrive at office, get my Starbucks latte, head to desk, and start work.

  • Occasionally, I will run at lunch if schedule allows.

  • 5pm: head home, kids are deep in sports, so every evening is often filled with sports practices or games.

    • Depending on schedule, there’s a lot of split duty required between me, my husband, and often my in-laws.

    • Sometimes dinner is concession stand food, and sometimes it’s Uber Eats, and sometimes I’ve prepped on the weekend and it’s real food.

  • ~8pm: After kids go to bed, I go straight to bed - skincare routine and read for a few hours. I don’t watch a lot of tv, but evenings are my chill time during the week, and I protect that time. I will push off chores to the morning or weekend vs doing it after kids go to bed.

  • ~10pm - Go to sleep. I often have early morning meetings during the week, and on those days, my husband handles all the morning kid requirements and gets them to school.

Morning "Make Life Easier" Hacks

• Prep water bottles for kids day before and have them in fridge.

• Same with lunches if they are taking them - my rule is if the kids want a home lunch, they have to pack it themselves or else they can eat school cafeteria.

• Game changer trick for our mornings is I created a sock drawer and a hair drawer by the back door so kids aren’t running up and down stairs as they are inevitably late to get out the door.

• I also have a snack bin that I pull out for school snacks vs sending them rifling through the pantry.

• We use the Greenlight app to incentive kids to be downstairs on time. They get money if they are ready and downstairs by 6:50.

• In terms of overall life logistics - we have a shared family calendar where all our stuff goes, and by now, my husband knows if it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t count!!

• Monday morning, I tend to go over the week with the kids at breakfast. When they have sports games, if one of us is traveling, if someone else is picking them up or taking them to school, etc. It helps prepare them for the week.

Transition into Work Mode

• Same office arrival routine every day - grab a latte, chat with coworkers who are in the area, head up to my office. I find getting truly ready for work helps. I am very casual on wfh home days but go sort of opposite on fashion for office.

• At home, this is harder - the whole day is pretty much a hybrid of work and personal. And I do a lot of work from my phone via Teams as I do stuff around the house, take kids to appointments, or run errands on wfh days.

What My Work Day Looks Like

• In general, my workday is pretty standard 8-5.

• I do often have early morning meetings, so I will come in early while husband handles kids.

• I also travel a bit and so does my husband - we put this on the calendar as early as we can and often have to get extra help in evenings or mornings from family or nanny.

• We are lucky to get a lot of flexibility if we need it which means I am able to arrive early or leave early if kids have school stuff, early sports games, etc.

• I put all my kids’ stuff on my work calendar - mid-day doctor appointments, field days, sports games, etc. I do not make these private because I want to role model the ability for parents (especially women) to be parents and have successful careers.

• I also do this with exercise - if I’m running at lunch or leaving early for a workout class, I put it on my calendar.

• This took many years for me to be comfortable with, but it’s worth any of the potential judgment to me because it’s important to me and I know others.

Lunch/Snacks

• Eat lunch anywhere between 11-1, usually at my desk but also with coworkers. Or I go for a run and then eat at my desk after. Every day is different!

Meeting Breaks

• I try to schedule focus time and am better at sticking to it. Some days just don’t allow for it.

Leaving work

• I generally leave between 4:30-5:15 depending on meetings and kids’ activities. We live pretty close to work, so this is doable.

• We have an afternoon nanny who picks kids up from school and is on the clock until 6, so we have flexibility depending on work schedule.

Transition out of work mode

• No time for transition - generally, I just go straight into evening activities. The 15-min commute is all I get!

After work hours

• Kids sports activities,

• Make dinner,

• Clean up kitchen,

• Work with every kid to ensure homework is done,

• Go through backpacks and what’s been sent home,

• Follow kids around to ensure they are getting ready for bed, and then when they are in bed with books around 7:30pm, I do my skincare routine - loving my red light therapy mask!

• I read for fun - mostly romance and Romantasy, but any fiction to escape the chaos.

• Lights out around 10pm.

Post-kid bedtime hours

• Relaxation - no tv, I read, I work on my book Instagram account

• I try to get kitchen clean in partnership with my husband before kids are in bed so once they are, all must-do chores are complete.

Nighttime Non-Negotiables

• Clean up post-dinner,

• Always run the dishwasher,

• Prep kids water bottles,

• Read my books,

• Nighttime skincare!

Afternoon/evening “make life smoother” tips

• Don’t be afraid to push off chores to the weekend that don’t really have to be done during the week and prioritize downtime instead. I function so much better this way - all laundry is done on Sundays for the most part.

Sharing the load with a partner

• This has evolved over time. The more kids we had, the more sharing was a necessity – not a nice to have.

• We tend to have “jobs” but we help where we need to. He is main dish washer post-dinner, does most of the laundry, takes trash out, takes kids to school, and is main sports parent.

• I handle all the groceries and most meal making. I do the finances, kids’ dr appointments and school forms, travel planning, pretty much all life logistics.

• There’s still some tension sometimes, but we have fallen into a routine that works.

• I am the weekend morning parent and he sleeps in but the trade off is he watches kids so I can do my long runs.

Outsourcing

• I’m a big believer in delegating what you don’t have passion in doing where you can and, of course, if you can afford it.

• Afternoon nanny Mon - Thurs. Works 1-6pm. She will do home organization projects, unloads dishwasher, picks up kitchen/living room so not a disaster when we get home.

• We also delegate out the laundry folding and have someone come every Monday to fold and put away the clean laundry.

• We also have a cleaning lady who comes once a week.

• I leverage Uber Eats a lot. It’s not great, but it’s what we need.

• I also use Shipt for all grocery delivery. That’s either a Sunday or Monday activity.

Exercise

• I aim for 3 days a week. It’s usually Friday on WFH day mid-morning, Sunday early morning long runs with a group of friends (double counts as social time), and one day during the week. When during the week changes depending on schedule - sometimes it’s early mornings before work, sometimes it’s at lunch. I am not an evening workout person - I have no energy left, but if desperate, I’ll do a 4pm workout class so I can be home before nanny leaves at 6pm.

Anything else the sharer wants to share

• Big believer in proactive calendar planning. Every Monday, I look out two weeks and calendar in my workouts and add logistics in terms of having to go in to work early or logistics for any evening sports or work events.

• I use Shipt for grocery delivery, and you can save your most ordered items so this makes the weekly shop easier. I am not always great at this, but meal planning on Sunday mornings helps immensely.

• Every stage of life is different. Energy levels change - give yourself grace. I remind myself often consistency over perfection and a little is better than nothing.

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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