This is part two of a two-part series about planning your day. If you haven’t listened to part one (episode 189), I highly recommend you do so and then come right back to listen to this one. Join me as I guide you through a typical day in my life as a work-from-home mom. I discuss how I use time-blocking, rhythms and answer your questions .

In this episode I discuss: 

• My typical weekday 
  
  
  
  • My weekly rhythms for work, home and family
  
  
  • Time-blocking 
  
  
  
  


• How the changing seasons also change my days
  
  
  
  • Family life, priorities and routines
  
  
  
  


• Answering some questions I’ve been asked about planning my days
  
  
  
  • Exercise, laundry, meal prep, groceries, planning the week
  
  
  • Derailed plans 
  
  
  
  

All the fun links you might enjoy 

• Family rhythms (setting your own, and worksheets) Family Rhythms + free worksheet


• Planning the week with your partner What happened in my marriage when we started weekly calendar meetings


• Exercise for wellbeing 184. Movement as self-care (exercise for wellbeing, not weight loss)


• Establishing a chore routine 61. How we introduced chores to our kids (Saturday Morning Chores)


• Creating your own simple cleaning routines Homemaker, on Purpose (the guidebook)


• Working on your sense of capability 115. A Controlling mom, or a capable mom?


• 170. Planning the Day (reactive vs proactive, tools and approaches I use)


• 129. Does your ‘to-do list’ overwhelm you? Expectation overwhelm and how to handle it.

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Upcoming workshops and coaching:

• The Oct 13 group coaching session

The Oct 27 workshop on motivation

Full transcript (with timestamps)

0:00

Hey friends, it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and counselor from simple on purpose.ca. Welcome to the simple and purpose podcast.

0:16

This episode is part two, actually. So I would encourage you to go back to the previous episode and listen to that first. These episodes are on planning my day planning my week and the first episode I talked about applying that concept of if everything matters, nothing matters. And I think that’s just really a good foundation to have in the back of your mind when you’re thinking about filling your day, and how you’re going to fill your day. So I encourage you to go back and listen to that.

0:42

Let’s talk about my typical day, which is a question you guys have asked me. I kind of like hearing on other people’s days, I don’t know, I they used to do that Instagram challenge, like a day in the life or I forget what it’s called, like one hour every? I don’t know. Anyways, I thought it was really interesting. I like to peek in on how other people were spending their time. So I’m going to talk about my day and then answer a bunch of questions that you guys have sent in.

1:09

So my typical day, week day, I’m going to wake up around 720. And I have a timer for the Internet and like the Internet app on my phone. So the kids can’t turn the TV or iPad on until seven because they were waking up really early just to watch TV. So they are watching a little bit of TV by the time I’m up. And I get up, we all kind of get ready, the kids leave. Generally, they’re all over the door by 830. And then I can eat breakfast, make a coffee and get started on my workday.

1:38

So I spend my day working, I break for lunch in lunchtime. I like to like go out in the kitchen, listen to a podcast, maybe go outside, if the weather’s nice, maybe go for a 10 minute walk, go back to work. And you know, because I’m working from home, I can do things like throw the laundry through, get the meat out of the freezer, because we’re always forgetting to build a meat out army, do a quick living room tidy when the kids are heading out the door. And I head back to work.

2:04

So the kids come home between three and 330. Actually, my oldest usually comes on first. So we actually get about like 10 or 15 minutes to just catch up and talk. And that’s actually a really special time of my day.

2:18

When they get home, I aim to be in the kitchen because they’re unpacking their bags or eating a snack. They do a chore in that area. And then they’re gonna head out and probably play their screen time, their further time limit for the day.

2:31

So when they’re coming home, I just want to hang out in the kitchen, I will tidy up the kitchen, usually one of them has to do dishes. So I’ll reload the dishwasher. I eat a snack too, because I need a break I need to eat. And I also just want to be available. You know how kids when they come home, they just held it together all day they’re exhausted and sometimes just being there that presents whether or not they come to you for anything, it’s just I think it’s comforting.

2:58

So they’re heading out after about half an hour and they’re hanging out with their friends going to meet up with their friends, whatever, or they’re doing their screen time. And suddenly, I’m alone in the kitchen again. So I try not to go on Instagram, I really try not to go on Instagram, whenever I find myself alone in the kitchen, which is usually from the hours of 330 to I don’t know, they’re in bed. If I have a little bit of work left to do like session notes or drafting up a podcast, I’m just going to pull up the computer in the kitchen, like bring the laptop into the kitchen and just to be around them if they need me. But you know they have screens they don’t need me. So that’s that anyways, and then we get ready for whoever has activities that night.

3:40

We’re going to get packed up and get a bunch of snacks and water and all those things together. I was asked recently on Instagram, how I simplify our family life. And that’s one thing that has helped us is limiting each kid to one extracurricular activity because times three kids that’s just a lot of activities right? So two of them were in hockey actually which hockey’s a lifestyle guys like hockey’s a lifestyle commitment. You have to be all in as a family it takes over everything weekends. So we limit it one extracurricular each person.

4:15

The afternoon like four o’clock on I’m shuttling people to the places. I start making dinner depending on what it is I just couldn’t like let it simmer on the stove or whatever. In generally I start dinner early, regardless of activities happening in the evening. Because foods just a priority for me, especially being gluten free. It’s hard to get excited about food. So it’s something I have spent a lot more effort on, especially in the recent years. We get the farm box for some of the years so that is something that I try to enjoy and use well and I’m googling recipes and trying different things. So Dinner, dinner is a big deal to me and probably my husband the kids generally are disappointed in whatever I make but I’m enjoying So, in this is recent, right? I think I shared in the last episode that some seasons it was toast on eggs and I would look on Instagram and wonder how are these moms roasting chickens and making biscuits with toddlers? Cue the episode I just did on Instagram culture because I definitely had warped expectations, thinking I could do all of the things all of the time that other moms with toddlers, were making