Happy Thursday! I thought it might be fun to do a day-in-the-life post, which are some of my favorite posts to write and read. I love doing “Snapshot of My Day,” which is a much more condensed version of day in the life, but sometimes, it’s fun to give you all the boring details of my day-to-day life. 🙂 Enjoy!
5:45 a.m.: My Sleep Cycle alarm starts to slowly wake me up. I have the alarm set for 6 a.m. with a 20-minute wake-up window, so it starts going off when I’m in a lighter phase of sleep from 5:40-6:00. I pick it up, which snoozes the alarm. It’s then I realize both cats have joined me on the bed during the night with one on each side of me. So sweet!
Not the best night of sleep, sigh
5:55 a.m.: I turn off my Sleep Cycle alarm after it goes off two more times, scroll Instagram (which is mostly depressing; I can’t believe there was another school shooting at an elementary school. My heart is so broken for the families.), and then play the day’s Wordle (took me 5 attempts today).
6:10 a.m.: I go to the bathroom, put my hair in a ponytail, and throw on my workout clothes. Then, I head to the living room to spend 30 minutes with my Peloton besties. Today, I’ve queued up a 20-minute full-body workout with Callie Gullickson (she’s quickly becoming one of my fave strength instructors) and a 10-minute arms workout with Ben Alldis.
Afterward, I sit on the couch, bookmark a few more strength workouts to do next time, and play Happy Color.
7:15 a.m.: I make breakfast. Today, it’s scrambled eggs, cinnamon toast, and iced coffee. Yum, yum! I read through some of my email subscriptions while I eat and then start working on this post.
8:00 a.m.: I take a shower. And since I have a few video calls today + plans later this evening, I blow-dry and straighten my hair. But hey, since my hair is now so much shorter than it was last week, it barely takes any time. Win!
8:30 a.m.: I log into my work computer, do a morning check-in with one of my writers, and go through my emails. Nothing too pressing to get to, so I write out my to-do list for the day and then I hit up my team’s Slack channel to say good morning. Every morning, I tag one of my writers for something I call “Sharing is Caring” where they share something that’s going on in their lives: it could be a TV show they’re watching, a restaurant they visited, travel tips for a city they’re visiting soon. It’s a fun way to make sure my team stays connected (and I got this idea from another manager so I can’t take credit!)
After those check-ins, I start my first working block for the day. I tend to work in hour-long sprints and then take a short break. During this working block, I finish a content plan I had started working on yesterday, record a short training video on how to use one of our WordPress plugins, and address some edits made by one of our clients and send them to the content writers working on the account.
9:45 a.m.: I take a short break. I read a little bit of my book on the couch and then wash my breakfast dishes from this morning.
10:05 a.m.: Back to work! During this working block, I edit a few batches of content from one of our contractors and make some notes for my meetings happening later today. I end up writing nearly a whole page of notes (bullet list style), so apparently, I have a lot to talk about today!
Eloise now loves sitting next to me on my office chair when I’m working. How can I deny her anything?!
11:10 a.m.: Break time! I eat a snack, string cheese and fruit, while catching up on Feedly.
11:30 a.m.: Time for our weekly content team lead meeting. During this meeting, we mostly talk about something new that our parent company will be rolling out soon, which is under wraps so I can’t talk about what it is yet. It will mean some changes to our workflow, but I’m excited about it! Afterwards, I spend some time searching for virtual team building games.
12:50 p.m.: It’s time for lunch and I am hungry! I heat up leftover pizza and munch on it while I scroll through Reddit for a bit. During this time, my plans for tonight fall through so I FaceTime my mom and tell her we can watch the Survivor finale together. We were going to have to wait until tomorrow evening to watch it and avoiding spoilers would have been a full-time job.
2:00 p.m.: And it’s back to work for me! I do a little bit of editing work and then I have a meeting with my director to go over some questions I have. We have these one-on-one meetings every week, sometimes they go for an hour and other times, we’re in and out in 20 minutes. This week, it’s a quicker meeting where we discuss writer assignments for June (I’ve taken over assignment duty and it is my favorite thing), an issue I’m dealing with and the best way to address it, and a project I’m working on for the team. Once we’re done, I jump over to Airtable (where our assignments live; it’s basically a spreadsheet database for those unfamiliar) to start organizing the June assignments tab. I can sit there for hours if I’m not careful and I have other, more pressing to-dos on my list today so I give myself 30 minutes to play around with it before I go back to my editing task.
3:45 p.m.: Break time. I spend a little bit of time working on this post and then take myself to the couch to read for a bit. I also tidy up the apartment.
4:30 p.m.: Last working block of the day, yay! I finish up the editing task I was working on earlier, spend a little more time playing around with June assignments before forcing myself to close the browser so I can check off some of today’s to-dos. And for the rest of the day, I work through my to-do list. A lot of boring things: looking over content submissions, answering emails, and reviewing the website posting from another writer to make sure it meets SEO standards. Blah, blah, blah.
6:00 p.m.: I shut down my computer for the day. Work is done – woohoo! I FaceTime my mom to make sure she’s at home and then get ready to head over to her house for the night.
6:20 p.m.: I arrive at my mom’s and the dogs attack me with kisses and excited barking. I always have to sit down on the couch and let them climb all over me, attacking my face with kisses, for a few minutes. They are the best little greeters! My stepdad is watching tennis and my mom is working on a puzzle when I arrive. Chip keeps running over to the patio door and whining, so I take the dogs out. Chip mainly wants to bark at the ducks that love hanging out in the neighbor’s backyard and Lucy wants to make Chip chase her around the yard. Afterward, we come inside and hang out on the couch. There was some snuggling, some kisses, some wrestling (between the dogs).
7:00 p.m.: My mom and I play a quick game of Phase10 together.
7:30 p.m.: Our dinner arrives (we ordered takeout) so we all eat together while the dogs try their best to get any food scraps they can.
8:00 p.m.: It’s time for the Survivor finale! It’s such a good finale and I’m satisfied with the winner. This is only the second season of Survivor that I’ve watched, but I’ve really enjoyed it. I kinda want to watch the other seasons but with 40 seasons to watch, I don’t think I’ll ever get around to that.
10:35 p.m.: The show is 3 hours long (!!!) but the last half-hour is just the cast reminiscing about the show, so I decide to go home because it’s LATE for a weeknight. Whew.
10:50 p.m.: I’m home and the girls are happy to see me. I’m beat and all I want to do is get into my jammies and crawl into bed. It’s been a long day!
11:30 p.m.: Lights out!’
What’s something you crossed off your to-do list yesterday?
If Eloise ever gave me that look, I wouldn’t ever get any work done at all. So adorable.
What’s a good night sleep look like for you? Are you looking for a certain number? I’ve never slept with a sleep tracker, but I guess I’m just curious if you have “sleep goals” or if this was a usual/unusual night?
I don’t necessarily have sleep goals, but I do want to spend the majority of my night in “deep sleep” (or close to it) and the night I posted was very up and down between awake and light sleep with only a few stretches of deep sleep. Of course, this track isn’t SUPER accurate since it only tracks movement/noises, but I don’t like wearing a watch to sleep, which would be a little more accurate.
I love, love, love these posts. So fun to see a peek into your life!
Did I tell you that your hair looks great? Well, it does! It looks fantastic!
I haven’t watched Survivor in a million years, I kind of forgot it was on TV! Very fun!
Thank you, friend! I’m loving the shorter style so much. I thought I would miss my long hair but I really don’t!
How are there so many seasons of Survivor? I was in high school (middle school?) when it started.
Your hair looks so nice. A new cut is so satisfying <3
My sleep on vacation has been horrific; I want to make the most of my time and so I've been sacrificing sleep. So far it has been 100% worth it, but I know a crash is coming soon…just hopefully not before I get home to my own bed?!
I think they film multiple seasons in a year, so that’s why they’re in the 40s with their seasons even though the first season premiered in 2000! What’s wild is that now they have people on Survivor who weren’t even born when the first season came out. Whaaaat. It makes me feel so old, lol.
As you know, I love these posts and catching a glimpse into other people’s daily lives!
I think it’s great when people get together to watch shows together. I did this – virtually – for a while with my friend in SoCal and we’d watch “90-day Fiancé” “together” on Sunday nights… haven’t done this in forever. So glad you can just go over to your Mom’s and have a watch party!
P.S. I can’t stand Callie … hahaha (she’s way too chatty for me)… but I must say that I’ve gone through phases with instructors and so I am just waiting for the time when I change my mind about her… LOL
Oh, that’s so funny! I prefer the chatty instructors because I need them to keep me entertained, haha. There are some instructors (especially for spin) that aren’t chatty ENOUGH and I get so bored in their classes. And I know some people probably LOVE those instructors because they don’t talk too much. That’s why I love the Peloton platform: there is truly something (and someone!) for everyone!
I love these kind of posts, too. And I like hearing more about your job! It sounds like you are really enjoying your manager role and find it really fulfilling. I managed people in my 20s and I really hated it! But it was good to learn that I am better as an individual contributor. You have to really want to develop people/build a team/etc to enjoy management, or at least that is part of it. I just wanted to get things done. Ha! 😛 But it was an educational experience and now I know what I want out of my career!
Gosh I feel like I barely crossed anything off lists last week. Phil and I kept passing Will back and forth between us. So I worked in short snippets of time and then when I was on Will duty I could not do anything else. We did got on a lot of walks, although last Wednesday was very very rainy so we were cooped up indoors for most of the day so I about lost my mind that day!
Tehehe – your Enneagram 1 is showing with your comment! But I totally get it. Sometimes it can be really hard not to want to jump in and do everything yourself! I wonder how I will feel about the position when I’m actually training a new hire and developing them from the get-go. Most of the people on my team are already pretty self-sufficient and don’t need much from me, which is nice! But I also really like helping out people who need the extra support and trying to figure out how to set up systems that work with the way THEY work.
I am impressed you can play Phase 10 and not want to kill each other. Or is that just my family? 😉
Sharing is Caring sounds awesome. I wish we’d do that at work. I feel so disconnected but people just don’t want to out the effort in.
What do you like to scroll on Reddit?
I totally understand that feeling of disconnection! I felt it a lot on my former team so I really wanted to develop a sense of camaraderie and connection on the team I was building. It’s important!
I mainly just scroll through Blogsnark – mainly the celeb, podcast, and book forums! And when I’m watching a specific reality show in real time, I like reading the Reddit forums of people reacting to the show.
LOVE the hair – love it! It looks amazing, and i bet it’s cooler and so much easier to work with.
You know I love these posts, even if I never do them! So interesting to get a peek into others’ days. I like how you break up your work day – it’s kind of the Pomodoro technique on steroids (longer work periods but slightly longer breaks, too…). So glad you got to hang out with your mom and watch Survivor. I have honestly never seen an episode! Odd that I never got in to it. I was more of an Amazing Race person, when I had a tv. 🙂