A day in my life | 2016

I’ve been working on tracking my time this month, so I thought I’d share one of my days with you all, since I haven’t done that in a while.

At first I thought, oh, I should pick a more typical day, but then I looked over my week and realized that none of my days are “typical” and I was reminded that “typical” is something that kind of doesn’t exist.

So.

This is from two weeks ago, when the husband was doing some training, so our schedule was running earlier than usual.

5:30-the alarm goes off, we  curse the day we were born (how did we get up this early for so long before??), and we get up. He showers and gets dressed, I sleepily make him some coffee, and he heads out the door at 6:00.

I didn’t keep good records for the next few hours, but I know that by 9:30, I:

-got dressed and did my hair and makeup
-checked email and social media
-made my bed
-started laundry
-wrote and published a blog post
-shared my post on social media
-responded to blog comments
-had breakfast
-made bread dough
-did Zoe’s hair
-made tea

Then I started writing things down again.   😉

9:30- cut up cantaloupe, started chicken broth, switched laundry loads

9:45- math checking/correcting

10:00- I sauteed onion in the broth pot, added water, and left my broth to simmer.   I also shaped my risen bread dough into loaves.

10:15- more math checking, and I found a new math notebook for Joshua.

10:30- math correcting

10:45- math correcting

11:00- I sorted and folded laundry, put in a new load, and put my bread in the oven.

11:15- I helped Zoe with her math investigation

11:30- more laundry switching, and I sorted through a sibling fight or two.

11:45- I took my bread out of the oven and took a small Instagram/email break

12:00- 12:45 lunch break!

12:45- I ironed the husband’s work clothes and a shirt of mine. Sometimes I listen to a podcast while I do this, but I opted for silence this time, which is good for, you know, thinking.

1:00- I did some kitchen cleanup and took out the compost.

1:15- I checked emails, responded to blog comments, and started writing some blog posts.

1:30- blogging

1:45- blogging (writing this post, which is kind of meta, I suppose. Ha.)

2:00- blogging

2:15- Zoe needed the computer for schoolwork, so I strained my chicken broth, checked Instagram, and rounded up my grocery receipts.

2:30- blogging

2:45- blogging

3:00- algebra help with Lisey

3:15- Lisey needed the computer for schoolwork, so I headed to the kitchen, where I:

-organized the fridge
-made banana bread
-poured my chicken broth into jars for freezing
-cooked and cut up corn for dinner
-cut up some apples with bad spots and put them out for snacking
-froze some leafy greens and fruit for future smoothie use
-texted with a friend 😉

4:45- back to blogging while my banana bread bakes

5:00- blogging (with a break to take banana bread out and photograph it)

5:15- blogging

5:30- blogging

5:45-6:30– dinner prep

6:30- dinnertime

And after this, my time tracking gets fuzzy.   Before 9:00 I:

-ate dinner
-went out to run a few errands
-cleaned up dinner (the kid who usually does the dishes was gone.)
-made a cup of tea for the husband
-made a second panini for a child who came home from rehearsal (teenagers. So hungry.)

9:00- I don’t like doing math at night, but I corrected Lisey’s algebra and went over it with her.   It was a super fast session….15 minutes! Yay.

I hung out with the kids and husband after this, and we hit the hay around 10:30.

A Few Thoughts

Tracking my time has reminded me that one day is never representative of someone’s life.

For instance, this day was one of those rare ones that required no leaving of the house!   I didn’t have to take anyone to school, we had no appointments, dance is over for the year, and nothing else was going on.

So, this day had a lot more household tasks than other days do.

But the day before, I was barely home…I took a kid to school, went out to breakfast with my mom and sister for a belated Mother’s Day breakfast, picked a kid up from school, dropped the kid off at home, and took the girls to go hang out with friends for the afternoon.

And the day after this one, I took a kid to and from school, I had a mid-morning appointment, I had to take Lisey to her pre-op tonsillectomy appointment, and then I took her to see a friend’s dance rehearsal before I came home and made dinner.

 

Plus, this is a day at the end of the school year, so I spent less time doing school-related stuff than I would on an average school day.

And while it seems like I spent a lot of time blogging that day (2 hours and 45 minutes), I spent very little time blogging other days that week (I’ve been trying to get more blogging done all at once, rather than spreading it out all over the place.)

So, I can see the value in tracking time for a week, or a month, so that you get a better idea of how time use averages out.