I’m so happy to answer my first questions from a reader! One of my sorority sisters asked these questions and I have to be honest, they were a little bit of a doozy for me. I’ll explain at the end.
What is your daily schedule?
~5:30 Wake up, no alarm. Stay in bed looking out the window and thinking. This is a huge part of my “me time.” I used to get up and go to the gym 3-4 days a week but recently I just haven’t been feeling it and just relishing that time in bed.
6:00 Alarm goes off for Mike.
~6:40 I get out of bed before the last of about 6 snoozes goes off.
~7:00 Mike is out of bathroom and we’re having breakfast and watching Morning Joe or Mike & Mike (kind of together, kind of not)
7:45 Mike is off to work.
8:35 I leave to catch the bus. (Read more about my morning routine or lack thereof here.)
9ish-5ish work
6:00 Mike’s home
Evenings consist of coaching calls, tutoring, teleclasses, dinner, some TV, trying to have quality time with my husband.
~9:05 I’m in bed.
How do you get everything done?
There are two parts to this answer:
1) I don’t, some things get put off. Perfect example: the big peach spot on the bottom of our tub. It’s gone now because on a whim I thought “ok, this has gotta go” but it was there for about 2+ weeks before I did anything about it.
2) My husband helps a lot. I was actually thinking about this recently after a friend asked “how do you do it all?” That was the primary answer I came up with. Of course I’d love to think that I’m super woman but really, Mike does a lot for me. From grocery shopping, to cooking, to cleaning, to managing our money, Mike really does a lot.
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To be honest, I struggled a lot in answering these questions. I came up with two questions as a nice, easy way to share things about married life, relationships, life as a twenty-something but these threw me a little bit. The answers about driving and where we eat dinner, piece of cake. Ask me about money, I have an answer for that. The questions about friends and couples, a little harder but just took a little thinking to articulate my thoughts.
But these, I procrastinated on this post a little. Ok, a lot actually. I could’ve written this post over the weekend when I had time to sit in my bed with my computer, window open, nice breeze coming in, watching OWN, and writing.
I did NOT want to answer these questions this morning when I had plenty of time to draft a post. And I had a little bit of anxiety when I thought about writing this post when I was relaxing after work.
It’s now 9:17 and I’m still up typing away.
Here’s why. I wasn’t ready to own the answers to these questions. These answers aren’t completely working for me and so it was a bit harder to share them.
Frankly, when it comes to my schedule, I’m working with what I’ve got at this point. It’s not ideal. I’d like to have a little more balance and relaxation in my week, more time for my husband. Ideally, I’d have happy hour plans once a week between Monday and Thursday and the gym would be back to something I just do. I’d work significantly less than I do and my work wouldn’t creep into my mornings and evenings like it does now.
How do I get everything done? Geez, just hit me where it hurts! I always feel like I’m not doing enough. That I could be doing more, more, more in every aspect of my life.
But you know what my schedule does reflect? Trying to strike a balance between work and personal time, something that’s very important to me. I’m proud that I give myself the time I need and that I’m working toward a dream. And that I made a concerted effort to add a little more of what I want and need: time to rejuvenate through a hobby, and time with my husband.
And you know what I do get done? Enough. Each day I do exactly what I was meant to do. I’m doing just fine.
Note to self: remind yourself of these things when the little voice inside your head tells you that you’re not doing enough or that you should be doing more (probably around 6:50 tomorrow morning).
I have to say a big, big, THANK YOU to Katie for asking these questions and inspiring this post and the reflection and honesty that came from it.