My Typical Day

January 13, 2021

I have seen several other people post about their typical day so I will join the trend. This is a typical schedule of my work week which is Monday through Friday. I have been working remotely from home for the past 6 years.

  • 7:00 am – Get up to an alarm. Most days I try to get up by 7. But some days I get up a little bit later at 7:30 especially if I get to bed later.
  • 7:10 am – After I get up, I take a shower and get ready for the day. This is a recent change to my schedule as I use to go to my desk and have my devotional time with God. But I tended to linger longer and get a later start on work so I decided to do the shower first.
  • 7:30 am – I spend an hour reading the Bible (using a reading plan), praying, journaling, and/or reading a devotional book. I am currently reading through Isaiah by the Day.
  • 8:30 am – I spend about 15 to 25 minutes looking through my RSS feeds and Twitter feed. Sometimes I will read articles from my RSS feed but most days I just save them to Pocket and read them later.
  • 8:45 am – Eat breakfast. Depending on how long I linger in looking at feeds, this time may vary by 15-30 minutes. But the past two weeks I have been a bit more disciplined.
  • 9:00 am – Start my workday. I usually start by checking Slack and my work email. I review my schedule for meetings.
  • 9:15/20 am – Begin the actual work. I have already been thinking about my next step before I get to this time so it is just a matter of doing it. Most days I have a pretty long block just to work on projects without any meetings. I usually will only have one meeting in the morning maybe once or twice a week. I have a regular 1:1 with our HR person bi-weekly during this block.
  • 12:30 pm (Monday) – We start the week by having a weekly forecast meeting. This is like a standup meeting. It helps us to all be on the same page and identifies where we might need to jump in and help our teammates as needed.
  • 12:00 pm (Wednesday) – On Wednesday, my company has an hour-long All Hands meeting. A typical meeting will include updates from our leadership team, teammates sharing about recent projects, and an overview of business development and future projects. About once a month, the leadership team goes a bit more in-depth into different subjects like quarterly OKRs, ideas on how to improve our process, etc.
  • 12:00 pm (Friday) – Almost every Friday, we have a team Campfire. This a team-building time where we may hear from a guest, discuss a podcast or book, play a game and build relationships, or hear from a teammate share about something of work or personal interest. We recently heard from Adeline Heymann about her experiences as an adventure photographer in Antarctica and how she has rewritten her career script to include these types of trips.
  • 1:00/1:30ish pm – I usually eat lunch around this time unless I have a meeting scheduled. The past couple of years I have had the habit of watching something while I eat and take up to an hour to step away from the work. This past year, I watched The West Wing during this time. Recently, I watched Season 3 of Cobra Kai on Netflix.
  • 2:00ish pm – My afternoon work block. I tend to have more meetings in the afternoon than in the morning block, including a bi-weekly 1:1 with my manager. I usually feel more focused and more productive in the afternoons. Might just be that I get a lot of foundational work done in the morning that begins to bear more visible fruit in the afternoon.
  • 5:00/6:00 pm – Most days I try to wrap up close to 5. It just depends on what I am doing. There are days when I am in the flow that I will continue working a bit later. And then some days the work just has to be done. But most days I am able to consistently knock off around 5. There are occasional days that I will knock off earlier if I am at a good stopping point.
  • Before Dinner – On days that I have the time, I will typically play a game of MLB The Show on the PS4. I am currently playing through a season so I like the chance to play each day. Other times I will do something that needs to be done around the house or in my office. Or read articles from my Pocket feed or something I bookmarked on Twitter earlier in the day. I have a regular practice of making a daily log. I will usually do this just after work or will do it after dinner.
  • Dinner – We do not have a set dinner time. It can happen as early as 5 and as late as 7. It is dependent on what kind of day my wife has had and whether or not my daughter has ballet class which happens 3-4 times a week. My wife will usually take my daughter to ballet and I will pick her up later between 7:45 and 8:30.
  • 7:00 pm (after dinner) – Usually in the two hours after dinner, I will take time to read a chapter in a book, read articles that I saved in Pocket, or do my daily log in Evernote. There are many nights that I will watch something on Netflix with other family members. Recently we have been watching The Repair Shop or Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix. Some nights, I will go up and check in on what my kids are doing. It might be a short check-in or a longer conversation but those usually happen after dinner.
  • 8:30/9:00 pm – We have a family routine where I pray a blessing over my kids from Numbers 6:24-26. It was a practice we started over 10 years ago and it is a great way for us to end the day. My wife’s mother who lives with us heads to bed and our teenage kids get ready for bed after this time.
  • 9:15 pm – Most nights I will clean up the kitchen from dinner. This might happen earlier in the evening but a lot of nights it happens as my kids are getting ready for bed. This routine includes unloading the dishwasher, loading dirty dishes into the dishwasher, cleaning countertops, and putting things away that my wife may have used in dinner prep.
  • 9:30/10:00 pm (Fridays) – The past couple of months, we have watched The Mandalorian together on Disney+ with our teenage kids (our college daughter did classes remotely in the Fall). Other nights we might watch a movie together at this time or earlier in the evening with my wife’s mother.
  • 10:00 pm – Most nights I will find something to watch with my wife. Other nights, I may read while she catches up with people on social media or watches a video. We usually have about an hour of time to ourselves by the time everything calms down.
  • 11:00/11:30 pm – I am trying to head to bed around 11. It usually happens between 11 and midnight. So far, the past couple of weeks I have been going to bed closer to 11 which makes it easier to get up at 7. I also have a routine before I go to bed to put out things for my mother-in-law for her breakfast the next morning. I will put out her cereal bowl and spoon. I will fill her pot to boil water and put instant coffee and the extras in her coffee mug so it is ready for her to add the hot water in the morning. This is a recent routine to help her out so she doesn’t have to reach for things in the cabinets.

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