HISMD: VP of Program

WFH. Partner (In-office). 2 kids - 12yo & 8yo. St. Louis, MO. 44.

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. While some shares are clients of mine, most shares are not – we have a variety of how people manage their time, which I love as there’s no one right or wrong way. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do!

Before we get to the good stuff…

My 10-week Bright Method program opens for enrollment today at 11am US Central Time if you want to kick things off on September 9 or October 1 (you can jump into either today)! To learn all about it and jump in when it opens, visit this page. Hope to see you in there, and here if you have any questions (email me at kelly@kellynolan.com)!

Okay, on to today’s share!

The Snapshot

• Profession: VP of Program

• WFH

• Partner: Yes (in-office)

• Children: Yes – 2 kids (12yo and 8yo)

• St. Louis, MO

• 44

Typical Morning:

• Up at 5:30 to get myself together

• Wake my 12 year old at 6. While she gets ready for school, I work out at home.

• I take her to school at 6:45 and am back by 7:05 to get ready for the day and walk my dog.

• I am at my desk for the day by 7:45 or 8.

• In between all of this I drink coffee and eat something.

• My husband wrangles the 8 year old from 7:30 to 8:45 with school prep and getting her to school and then he’s off to work.

Morning "Make Life Easier" Hacks

• We prep EVERYTHING on the weekends and check every night.

• The girls prep all of their clothes, pick out breakfasts (that we prepare - yogurt, toast, banana and peanut butter, etc), and make sure backpacks are ready.

• My 12 year old really struggles with focus and speed, so she recently redesigned her morning routine and assigned herself time limits for various tasks, and it’s going well.

Transition Into Work Mode

• I do not find this difficult. I literally walk to my desk, sit down, and begin. I know that doesn’t work for everyone. But by the time I start work, I’ve been up and at em for 2.5 to 3 hours, so I am ready to sit down!

What My Work Day Looks Like

• My work days are a mix of zoom meetings with partners, team members and direct reports as well as work time on various projects.

• I try to cluster meetings so that I have larger periods of deep work time as well.

• I also reserve time at the end of each day for wrap up and it helps a lot.

• If I have even 2 minutes between zooms I will hop up to go grab more water, etc, to keep me moving and energized.

Lunch/Snacks

• I usually eat lunch at some point between 11 and 2, depending on my meeting schedule. I eat an afternoon snack typically around 3 or 4.

Breaks

• I try to hold a few minutes each afternoon to walk my dog, but it doesn’t always happen. She does get a morning walk and evening one, so she’s fine! Don’t worry about her! ;-)

Leaving Work

• I wrap up work between 4 and 4:30 pm and go pick up my 8 year old from school. Much of my team is on the east coast, so I keep “east coast” hours in the midwest and it works well for me.

Transition Out of Work Mode

• Walking to get my daughter from school is a nice reset.

After Work/Evening Hours

• Each day is slightly different, but it typically involves: picking up my 3rd grader from school, driving to after school activities (both girls dance), cooking and/or eating dinner, playing a board game with the family, walking the dog, and watching a show with my husband while I work on my current embroidery project.

• We bulk cook on weekends and certain nights each week to have leftovers frequently. We rarely eat out. Usually 2-4 times each month.

Evening Non-Negotiables

• My husband and I have end of day tasks pretty well divided. The kitchen is always clean, dishwasher running, load of laundry done (we do 1-2 loads most days), and house tidied. I also love to read myself to sleep so I make sure I’m in bed early enough to do that!

Afternoon/Evening “Make Life Smoother” Tips

• We eat wholesome SIMPLE meals. Lots of rice bowls, protein + veggie + fruit, easy prepped salads, etc.

• In this season I just also really enjoy spending time with my kids. They’re mostly independent so the evenings are for connection and for fun. Sometimes things are hard or busy, but overall they’re fairly smooth.

Sharing the Load with a Partner

• He probably wishes I was not as good at sharing the load! ;-) He is the primary morning parent due to his work schedule and I am the primary afternoon and evening parent. When it comes to housework, he is our exterior director (yard, snow removal, etc) and I’m our interior director (weekly cleaning routines, etc) and we both flex to each area based on capacity.

• We also own and operate four furnished rental homes, so we divide and conquer maintenance tasks for those during the evenings and weekends, too.

Things You Do For Fun/You During the Week

• Once a year I go out of town with three of the best women on the planet. We sleep, shop and drink for 3 days and it’s amazing.

• At home we support St Louis Dance Theatre which is great to always have a dance concert to attend every couple of months.

• I also love caring for our home, refinishing furniture, and gardening. Right now we are building a greenhouse!

Exercise/Body Movement

• Yes - daily resistance training plus 2-3 walks a day. I average 12k steps each day.

Outsourcing

• I had a housekeeper for a decade and she retired and I never hired a new one. Now that the girls are older we all pitch in with home chores and it works well. I’d like to outsource some of the afternoon dance class driving, but finding a driver is NOT easy!

Anything Else the Sharer Wants to Share

• Everything I do with my kids is in service of their future executive function. They own a LOT of their lives (12 year old does all of her own laundry, for example, and makes her own snacks to take to dance) and I’m unapologetic about their roles within our family. We are a team, and we try to act like one.

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. 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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