A few weeks ago I shared with you some of my tricks for making time for art and creativity. This week I thought I’d share with you what an average day looks like for me. My husband works and we only have the one car, so I’m homeward bound most weekdays. There are a few exceptions to my schedule, like when we have a playdate or I borrow a friend’s car to run errands. But for the most part I consider Monday-Fridays to be work days and this is what my schedule on those days looks like:
6:30am: I’m usually up between 6:30 and 7:00. I’m a mom and an introvert so in order to have a little quiet time all to myself before my noisy toddler is up I have to get up a little early. My husband is usually already left for work so I have the house all to myself for a few. I start my morning with a cup of tea, in my favorite armchair, snuggled under my blanket while I catch up on emails and social media notifications.
7:30am: Sometime between 7:30 and 8:00 my son wakes up (and instantly starts talking, and talking, and talking….). We snuggle and hang out for a few while I drink the rest of my tea.
8:00 – 9:30am: After I finish my tea I make breakfast for my son and I. We eat, I clean up, do any dishes from the night before, shower and get ready for the day. My son gets to watch a little TV in the morning while I’m getting ready. If I have any laundry or cleaning to do I get it started.
9:30 – 11:30am: Time to clock in and get to work. I try to treat this like an actual job – regardless of how I feel I need to get to work by 9:30. It’s not always possible and I have to be flexible, but I try to keep these 2 hours set aside for work. At this time of day I’m usually either sculpting, painting, or sewing. By this time the TV may or may not still be on but my son is usually running around playing, sometimes with the neighbor boy who likes to sometimes visit. My worktable is in the corner of our living room where I also have a view of my son’s room so I can easily work without ever losing sight of him. I make it clear to him that I’m available to him if he needs anything and I’m available to talk, but that mommy is working. I try to make him feel apart of what I’m doing as much as possible. I show him what I’m working on, explain what I’m doing, and sometimes he’ll sit with me and color or play with Play-Doh.
11:30 – 1:00pm: Around 11:30 or so I take a break, make lunch and sit down to eat it with my son. Then we snuggle and read books and hangout until his naptime.
1:00 – 3:00pm: Time for a second cup of tea and more work. Naptime is when I get a lot of my work done. I don’t have any interruptions or distractions so it’s also the best time of day to do things that require a lot of focus and attention. Things like website maintenance, blog writing, picture editing, etc. If I don’t have any of those things to do I usually sculpt, paint, or sew during this time, usually with an episode of Star Trek or The Paradise on in the background.
The evening is a little less scheduled out for multiple reasons. One is that the length of my son’s naps vary. Sometimes he’s up at 3:00 and sometimes he sleeps until 4:30. Another reason is that my husband gets home at different times. But mostly my energy in the evenings is just plain pathetic. Some nights are better than others, but most of the time I don’t want to do anything in the evening. I’m still working things out so that I don’t waste any time, but for now my evenings look roughly like this:
4:00 – 5:00pm: My son is usually awake by 4:00 so I take a break from whatever I’m working on and instead check emails and spend a little time on social media. Being involved in different social media platforms is a good way to market your work so even though this feels like “play” I consider it work. I’ve built up a decent following on Instagram and am currently working on building up my Facebook and Pinterest audience. Still haven’t gotten the hang of Twitter, but I’ll get there. I also check and respond to emails at this time.
5:00 – 6:30pm: My husband is usually home by 5 so sometime between 5 and 6 I get dinner started and then we eat as a family.
6:30 – 8:00pm: This is my biggest chunk of down time, and I’m not sure that it’s a bad thing. This is usually when we hang out as a family. Sometimes we watch TV together, occasionally my husband and I play a video game together, but mostly we just hang out, drink beers, and talk about our day. Though even in my “down time” I’m still in somewhat of a work mode. A majority of our conversation is centered around what I’m currently working on or problems I’m having with my work, and my husband has proven to be a great sounding board and source of problem-solving.
8:00 – 9:30pm: My son is in bed by 8:00 and I spend the next hour and a half – two hours doing one of several things. Sometimes at this time of night I write a blog post or work on web maintenance. Occasionally I do a little sculpting or sewing. But more often than not I spend this time reading. I’m currently in the middle of Elminster’s Daughter, the end of a very good sci-fi series. I’ve found that if I work right up until I go to bed my mind doesn’t have a chance to shut down and I’m up all night. So reading before bed helps me to shut down for the night. And after all that I’m in bed by 10pm.
So there you have it, my daily schedule. I planned out and implemented this schedule a few months back and it’s really making my life easier. I’m still trying to figure out how to fit in stuff like exercising, but for the most part I’ve found a way to fit in a lot of the stuff that’s important to me and it’s helped me to be much more productive than I was before.