A Day in My Life

I am not a lifecaster. I don’t take pictures of my food, detail the events of my day or document the small things that I do over the course of 24 hours. That’s not to knock lifecasters — I read a ton of those types of blogs, and am inspired by their routines.

But, a reader recently emailed to ask how I fit everything in with a full-time job, blogging, fitness and more. So I thought I’d share what a typical Tuesday (in this case, yesterday!) looks like for me. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures along the way, so you’re stuck with a lot of text.

(One note: if you want to see how I fit in the gym several times a week, check this vlog out.)

10pm Monday: Roust self from couch and head upstairs for bed. Fall asleep by 10:45pm.

4:30am Tuesday: Wake up to sounds of dog puking. Scramble to clean it up and soothe him only to discover that he has thrown up a pair of my underwear.

4:45am: Am haunted by thoughts of what would have happened had he not been able to successfully throw up the underwear. Am equally obsessed with keeping all clothes off the floor from now on and finding a laundry basket with a top.

5:30am: Alarm goes off for my Tuesday morning pre-work walk but I can’t drag myself out of bed. Reset the alarm and fall back asleep.

6:30am: Alarm goes off (again) and this time I’m up. I check my email on my phone while still under the covers to look for work emergencies or other must-tackle-now projects.

6:45am: Brush teeth, brush hair and wash face. Consider flossing but decide “I’ll do it later.” (Probably won’t.)

6:48am: Hassle husband to get up and make coffee. Most days, he sets it up before we go to bed and I push the button in the morning after feeding the cats and letting the dogs out. But he’s been getting up with me and prefers to do it in the morning. I would make it but I’m TERRIBLE and somehow find a way to make coffee that tastes like burned water.

7:00am: Turn on the “Today” show and listen while getting dressed, braiding hair and doing makeup. Yell at the TV for a while.

7:15am: Dressed and downstairs, where I get my lunch ready for the day. Luckily, I have leftovers to take because normally, I’m scrambling. I make my coffee, put the broiler on for toast and wipe down the counters. I hate living among clutter, so I try and organize the mail and magazines but end up dumping everything on the stairs. Pledge to come up with a better system soon. (Probably won’t.)

7:20am: While waiting for toast, I do a quick read through my Google Reader. The goal is to “mark all as read” before leaving for work, but that doesn’t always happen. I skim. Good headlines grab me.

7:30am: Coffee and peanut butter toast are ready, so I eat in the living room while watching “Today” and checking headlines on my phone.

7:45am: Get my bag together for the day, grab my lunch and head out the door. Blow kisses to dogs and husband, who looks sleepy on the couch.

8:15am: Arrive at work. Spend 10 minutes getting set up — full water cup, plugged in laptop, news podcast streaming and to-do list organized.

8:25am: Check email, update company Facebook pages, share blog post on Facebook and do a quick once-over on news of the day. If I didn’t “mark all as read” before getting to the office, I give myself 5 minutes to read blogs before getting started on the day’s tasks.

9:00am-noon: Work — various tasks today including a meeting and lots of online work. Find myself buried in HTML for a while and have to force myself to roll my shoulders a few times to get out the kinks. Ouch.

12:00-12:30pm: Take my daily walk, about 2 miles or so. Sometimes my colleague comes with me, but not today, so I listen to “The Splendid Table” from NPR. As always, feel very thankful that I am able to take this respite from the computer.

12:30pm: Eat my lunch — today it’s leftover fried rice. Yum. Take 15 minutes to read blogs and check personal email while chowing down.

1:00pm-5:00pm: More work. (Have a Chobani snack at 3:00pm — mango. YUM.) Transcribing audio interviews, organizing the back end of one of our websites, making a proposal for a big project (!!!) and answering dozens of emails from people asking about our TV and Radio shows, etc,

5:00pm: Head home. It’s about a 30-minute drive. I listen to NPR on the way home.

5:30pm: Drop my stuff with a sigh (my laptop bag is HEAVY!), spend 15 minutes catching up with husband, play with dogs outside.

6:00pm: Help make dinner — it’s earlier than normal, but we have plans!

6:45pm: Eat dinner. Realize that I’m pretty deficient on veggies for the day. Aim to make up for it the next day.

7:30pm: Head out to visit friends who had a baby 5-weeks ago. Ohhh, so squishy!

9:00pm: Can’t tear myself away from baby, so check #Fitblog from phone. Once I see the chat is under control, I smile. I love that at this point, #Fitblog kind of runs itself (comes from having great moderators!). It used to be a weekly timesuck — one I loved! — but now I find I can multitask.

10:30pm: Home. I work on this post, schedule it for the morning and go through my Google Reader. Read a few pages of my book but I’m feeling pretty tired, so I head upstairs to bed and am asleep by 11:30pm.

Now, a few notes:

• I have a smartphone, so I am constantly checking my email and social networks on the go.

• Part of my job is to stay on top of social media trends, so every day, I spend at least 20 minutes on sites like Mashable, Read Write Web, the Huffington Post and other news/tech sources. I know that many of you don’t have that luxury! I also have Facebook and Twitter up all day and pull up those tabs at least once an hour to see what’s going on. Again, part of my job.

• I typically go to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, Saturday. Sometimes I sneak in another class on Tuesday or Thursday. This was a rare no-exercise day for me!

• My office is mostly a jeans/business casual place, so I don’t have to do a lot of ironing. That saves me a TON of time.

• I don’t shower every day (gasp!). I shower when I am really sweaty (say, after dance class or running) and at least every other day. I prefer showering at night because it takes forever to dry my hair.

• I very rarely write posts in one sitting. Usually, I take an hour or two on the weekend to update my editorial calendar, start collecting links, write a few paragraphs, etc. I also do almost all of my #Fitblog prep during the weekend. If I didn’t, I would spend a lot more time after work doing that kind of stuff.