This is a unique time in my life, and not simply due to the global pandemic, so I thought this might be a fun exercise to look back on for posterity’s sake…
7:50am – My alarm goes off and I reluctantly get up because this is when Sara leaves to take Christopher to school and I need to watch the other two kids and let Matthew’s therapist in at 8:00am.
8:00 – 9:00am – After making the kids breakfast, if I’m feeling productive I’ll do dishes and other chores; if not, I’ll waste time on social media until it’s time to pack David’s lunch and take him to school.
9:00am – The drive to school is short and pretty uneventful. Not as close as the kids’ old school which was literally half a mile away, but it’s maybe 10-15 minutes at best. Recently I’ve started listening to books on Audible and this is a nice way to get in a few hours of otherwise captive time each week!
10:00am – 12:00pm – This is where my day becomes a little more fluid because I’m currently working from home due to the pandemic. My life is much more chaotic if I have to physically go into the office, but right now sometimes I’ll dive right into work once I get home, sometimes I’ll flex my time and do a little writing, and occasionally I’ll even squeeze in some exercise! I need to start doing that again…
12:00 – 2:30pm – This is lunchtime, and shower time if I haven’t already, and sometimes I help put Matthew down for his nap. Even though the noise distractions of working from home can at times be frustrating, I love knowing what’s going on with the family during the day and getting to peek in on what Matthew’s learning instead of just hearing about it after the kids go to bed once I get home.
2:30pm – If it’s my day to pick kids up from school, I’ll leave to get David and then pick up Christopher afterwards. I’d like to say that it’s more time to listen to a book, but lately it’s more like listening to the same kids song on repeat 37 times in a row…
4:00 – 5:30pm – More work. I try to break around 5:30pm to watch the other two while Sara works on homework with Christopher and maybe get started on dinner, though admittedly that doesn’t happen as often as we would like.
5:30 – 7:30pm – Dinner, playtime, chores, baths … this time it usually pretty crazy. By the time we’re ready to put kids to bed, the whole house is equally pretty exhausted.
8:00pm – KIDS BEDTIME!!!
8:30pm – 12:30am – This can be a number of things … relax/wind down time watching TV with the wife, wrapping up work, maybe some writing. It’s tough because while this is a nice block of time to get things done, I’m usually running out of steam and don’t have the energy to do anything!
12:30 – 1:00am – It doesn’t always happen, but I’ve really been trying to get to bed around 12:30am because 7:50am comes way too soon the next day and it’s unfortunately one part of my day that’s anything but flexible.
You’ll note that the biggest theme for my schedule right now is flexibility. I never have more than a couple of hours doing any one things and it seems like there’s always a doctor’s appointment or a random errand to squeeze in somewhere, so it’s really important for me to be able to set my schedule around my life as opposed to living my life around my schedule.
Sometimes I might fantasize about getting to spend eight whole hours just sitting at my desk working, but the reality is that all of this other stuff that’s important to me will still be swirling around whether I’m there to help manage it or not. Except that it becomes way worse on Sara who would have to do more juggling to make up for my not being there. And if we’re being honest, some of the things – like Matthew getting therapy and the kids getting picked up from school – simply can’t happen without us both being around to be able to divide and conquer.
It’ll be interesting to look back and compare this to what my days look like five years from now, but for everything going on at this moment, this is what works – for better and for worse! 🙂