6:48AM: I’m up and so are the girls. They still don’t beg me for food, even though we’re now on a feeding schedule, which is very nice. Such polite ladies I have! I feed them and then sit on the couch for a few minutes playing Happy Color.
7:21AM: I’m finishing up a walk outside and lest you think this happens often, I honestly can’t remember the last time I went outside for a walk around my apartment complex. I haven’t even taken my yearly photos of all the blooming crepe myrtle trees around me! The travesty!
8:08AM: I have a hot cup of coffee and a full to-do list, so it’s time to power through my day. I spend some time working through my inbox and handling anything that needs an answer. Then, I check in with my contractors (one sent me content to edit and send out, but the others haven’t sent anything to our shared drive so it’s going to be a quiet day on the contractor front!) I decide to post some contractor content to our clients’ websites while I watch an episode of Suits. Ahh, perfect! It’s a mindless but satisfying task; perfect for Monday morning.
9:46AM: I took a shower and then sat down to play some games on my phone and wasted 15 minutes. Oops. Time to get up and finish my morning routine!
10:46AM: Eloise checks out what’s going on outside while I work. I’m doing meeting prep for the back-to-back one-on-ones I have with a few of my direct reports later.
11:46AM: (Listen, I don’t know how I took three photos in a row at the EXACT SAME MINUTE.) I get all the ingredients for Santa Fe Chicken in the Crock-Pot during my lunch break.
12:50PM: Here’s a different view of my “office.” (Please check out the extremely well-done drawing of the Olympic rings. I am available for all of your drawing needs.) Let’s see… what am I doing at this time? Clearing out my inbox, responding to some Slack messages, and finishing up my meeting prep. At 1pm, I jump into my first of four back-to-back meetings!
1:32PM: A quick snap between meetings for the blog. I do these one-on-one meetings with each of my direct reports (I have nine right now) every month and try to do them in batches, which is easier for me. The meetings can be quick (sometimes I’m done within 10 minutes!) but are scheduled for 30 minutes and sometimes we need the whole time. Today, the meetings range between 10-30 minutes. I’m finished with my 1:30 meeting with enough time to finish up some notes I wanted to make for my next two meetings.
2:45PM: Meetings are done! Some of the meetings were unexpectedly hard as two of my direct reports let me know about difficult things going on in their lives. I also had to bring up an issue with one of my writers, which is never my favorite thing to do. (But also, I feel very proud of myself when I do! Like I said when I called my mom between meetings, “I’m proud of myself for doing something I’m supposed to do.” Being a manager can be a difficult endeavor when you’re as conflict-avoidant as I am. But it’s also my job! Ack.) Anyway, Lila was there after my meetings for cuddles so that was nice.
3:10PM: I take a cleaning break! I am trying a new cleaning routine right now and we’re not going to make a big deal about it, so I don’t get scared off. OKAY?! The new routine is that I’m trying to clean one area of my floors every day. I feel like cleaning the floors is the most arduous task ever but I also love when my floors are clean, so by doing it this way, I can keep them clean on a more regular basis without it feeling so difficult. Today, I swept and mopped the dining area.
4:50PM: I’m trying to work on an email but Ellie has decided she must get pets at this moment EMERGENCY. So I have to stop everything I’m doing to make sure she gets her much-deserved head scritches. She’s very happy when I’m scratching her and very annoyed when I stop.
5:35PM: Dinnertime! It’s very rare for me to eat dinner this early but I was hungry and have a 6pm virtual dietician appointment, so it made sense to eat dinner beforehand. I serve it over brown rice and it’s soooo good. It makes a lot of leftovers, too, which is great!
6:00PM: It’s time for my monthly dietician appointment! We chat about breakfast ideas (I’m very much done with oatmeal for the time being), how to add more veggies to dinner, and making sure I’m eating every few hours (why is this so hard for me??).
7:51PM: Nothing like following up a dietician appointment with a plate of cookies! HA. Actually, my dietician would encourage me to eat these cookies so I don’t feel any guilt. I made a small batch and watched an episode of Survivor: Tocantins. Can you spot the cat in this photo?
8:18PM: I’m doing my nighttime routine and tidying up the apartment while Lila sits on the table and meows sadly at me every time I walk by. She wants extra treats and I try to hold out, but how can I resist those big green eyes? She knows she holds the upper hand here.
9:52PM: Nighttime routine is finished (I took a break for about 30 minutes to Facetime with my mom, which is why it took me so long). I sit down at my dining room table to fill out my One Line a Day journal and planner (which I only really use to track goals/daily habits).
10:20PM: I’m finally snuggled up in bed (with Lila!) and reading my book. But I’m also playing on my phone so I only manage to read 20 or so pages before it’s lights out. Oops.
What would you have taken a photo of on Monday?
I’m jealous that you can get work done at the same time that you watch TV. I just can’t do that – for more complicated/interesting tasks I have to think, and for mindless work having the TV on just makes it all the more boring so I’m not productive.
Yep we’re not going to make a big deal of cleaning the floor in small sections but I also need to do this. I try to do a big cleaning session once a week and it becomes a daunting task. I’ve often thought of breaking it up into sessions but I just haven’t done it yet.
What is the picture on your F10 key on your work computer? Enquiring minds want to know!
When I was still “just” a writer at my company, I coworked with some other writers and they had episodes of The Office playing the whole time. I think I wrote one sentence during an entire episode. I just can’t focus like that! There are definitely some mindless tasks I can do where I can watch a TV show but it doesn’t happen too often, which is a bummer haha.
My sweet girl Eloise broke the F10 key from the keyboard so it’s just the key without the covering, haha. (She still likes to paw at my keyboard from time to time but I make her stop now that I know the damage she can do!)
I once had a work project that was SO tedious but could be done while watching (or at least listening) to TV shows. I watched almost the ENTIRE series of Friends that way and it was awesome!
Loved seeing your Niagara mug. Woot, woot, Canada!!!
This looks like a great day. Some delicious food, outside time, pet snuggles, productive work things, and time to relax. Love this idea. I need to try this picture-every-hour some time!
Sometimes those tedious work tasks are so nice when it allows us to catch up on our shows! Ha!
That Niagara mug is one of my favorites – it’s sooo big!
What a fun project! I enjoyed your day, you live in a beautiful place. I like the photo of the cat sitting there staring at you and your camera.
There is always a lot of staring involved when she thinks she’s going to get an extra treat, haha.
I love these posts!
Ahhh the floors are the bane of my existence. It’s just impossible to keep up. Rex has giant fuzzy paws and we walk for a long time every day, and those fuzzy paws just pick up so much sand and dust from the greenway. Add this to the fact that he now goes into the creek to cool off; his wet paws pick up approximately 100000 times the dirt. Everywhere he goes in the house he leaves a little pile of dirt, we vacuum almost daily and I do an old-school mop frequently, and it never lasts. THEN he goes outside and rolls down the hill where I’m gardening, and that hill is just pure dry grass, so it’s like he’s covered in hay, practically, which he brings inside and shakes off. It is the most Sisyphean task ever. I feel like if we let it go we are going to be ankle deep in filth, and I do not want to be ankle deep in filth. However. Whenever I feel frustrated I remember that the floors were clean after Barkley died. I’d rather have the dirty floors and the constant vacuuming.
Dirty floors that you need to clean with a Rex by your side > immaculate floors with no doggo by your side. I understand that! When I think about not having cat hair everywhere, I get a little wistful until I remember that would mean NO CATS. And I am not about that life!
Ah, I love these posts. I like how your day is very cat-centered! If I took a photo on Monday it was probably involving cats.
Hee hee… i would say your Olympic rings need a little work, but just yesterday I was saying “When do the Olympics start?” and now thanks to your post I know- a week from tomorrow!!!
Yesss! Opening Ceremony is on FRIDAY! I can’t wait!
YES!! Five minutes of “extra” cleaning a day is my goal. Regular cleaning like dishes, putting away laundry, cleaning the litter box doesn’t count, but if I vacuum or dust or clean toilets or whatever, my goal is just five minutes. Sometimes I go over that, but many days I don’t have time for anything more!
Hmmm….Monday. I think I would have taken a photo of my husband’s IV at the hospital. He was on it nonstop for four days and we took to calling it his “little friend.” That sounds darker than it was. LOL.
Oh, I love that “five minutes” goal – that makes it feel SO MUCH EASIER! I’m going to have to give that a try.
Sometimes, you have to find bits of levity and humor in a not-so-fun situation! I get it!
We lost power on Sat at 1am and it was restored mid-afternoon while we were at work. So I would have probably taken a picture of a thermostat that was on meaning our A/C was running again THANK GOD. It was a very warm and steamy weekend so I was thrilled to have A/C back and actually got a bit cold by the end of the night!
I am impressed the girls don’t beg for food. Oscar definitely did. She more so “free range eats” at my MIL’s but it doesn’t seem to be impacting her weight too badly so I let it go. Plus she’s really more of Phil’s cat. And we have gotten my MIL to give her less treats.
Gahhh…. that must have been such a relief when the power came back on! Did you guys have a bad storm or something?
I keep waiting for the begging to happen! They ARE treat beggers so they aren’t perfect, but at least they don’t wake me up at 5am for breakfast, haha.
OF COURSE I SEE MISS ELOISE! Also LOLing at her petting emergency. URGENT!
I am proud of you for doing what you’re supposed to do too. We all have parts of our jobs that are really hard, and I’d find that hard as well and be so relieved when it was over.
And hells yes to eating what you want!!!!
Hmm. Monday. I cheated and looked in my photo album – I had rock pics, cat pics, and a pic of me running sans shirt.
There are just so many parts of a job that are not fun to do, and I think we SHOULD acknowledge when we do them and be proud of ourselves. YES.
I totally get the patting yourself on the back for doing your job. I do that every week during my contract year when I am in YET ANOTHER Friday afternoon meeting. Why, oh why? Yes, I’m mildly obsessed with this. No, I’m not going to stop griping about it (usually silently, not here!).
I love how you break up your day. My “breaks” entail 1) bathroom, 2) getting a drink out of the fridge, 3) getting a snack or meal.
Question on “eating regularly” – would it help you to prep some things that are portioned and easy to grab? Or, buy something along those lines? I ask because I literally prep every breakfast and lunch that I have for the week, even though my fridge is…hm. Maybe 10 feet from me? (I stink at estimating distance…). Otherwise? I get sucked in and completely forget to eat. Just a thought. 🙂
I need to be better about prepping food, but meal prep drives me crazy lol. My dietician and I have talked EXTENSIVELY about this topic because I’m so bad at it! I try to make it as easy as possible but even then, I get lazy. I’m a forever work in progress, haha.