Each Thursday, the “How I Structure My Day” series features women from different industries, with and without kids, with and without partners, with family living with/near them and not, wfh to 1+ hour commutes, etc. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do!
Know that if you’re ready to learn a time management system designed for professional working women, the 10-week Bright Method program is open and ready to get you results! Learn all about it here – and send any questions my way! Happy to talk out whether I think it would work for you, your main concerns, timing, etc. Send me a message, and I hope to see you in there!
Profession: Attending Physician - Pediatrics
In-office with a long commute
Partner: Yes (Hybrid)
Children: Yes – 2 kids (4-year-old & 7-month-old)
Miami, FL
34
My alarm wakes me up at 6am. As much as I would love to be someone who rises naturally with the sun, I have long accepted that I need an alarm.
I take my thyroid medication, brush my teeth, do skincare (cleanser, vitamin C, sunscreen), get dressed.
My husband and I swap who is in charge of giving our baby her morning bottle. Whoever is not on baby duty is making coffee, putting daycare bags/lunchboxes in the car.
My toddler's Hatch (sound machine) turns off/green light turns on at 6:40am on weekdays. This is programmed to happen automatically on the Hatch app. If this doesn't wake him up, we wake him shortly after. Whoever is not on baby duty is on toddler duty - getting him up, dressed, brush teeth, use the bathroom.
We are in the car by 7:05-ish am.
Most days, I do dropoff. My daughter goes to daycare, my son is in VPK at the same daycare, so for now we are lucky to have one dropoff.
After dropoff, I commute to work (~30 mins).
We use an over-the-door hanging organizer (on each of my kids' bedroom doors) to lay out daycare outfits for the upcoming week every Sunday. It has been a game changer.
My outfit is laid out the night before.
Daycare bags and lunchboxes are packed the night before. We have a bin next to the front door - whatever is in the bin needs to be taken to daycare the next morning (restock of diapers, my son's VPK homework, lunchboxes, etc.).
My 30-minute commute allows for a pretty natural/built-in transition into work mode. During my commute, I talk to my mom or my husband on the phone, then listen to a podcast.
The structure of my work day is generally always the same: seeing patients from 8:30am to 4pm with a break for lunch at 12pm-1pm.
On Mondays, I have administrative non-clinical time in the afternoon, so I only see patients in the morning. I use the afternoon for personal tasks or quiet time at home, as thankfully I am able to complete all of my non-clinical work (billing, documentation) during clinical hours. One of the big pros about being a millennial is that I can handle the EMR pretty seamlessly so as to get that weekly half-day back as personal time :)
UPDATE - the sharer generously responded: “I draw very hard lines/boundaries regarding keeping work at work. I find that if I get to signing notes at home, it’s slippery slope and before I know it I will have squandered my family time away. I am usually able to complete all notes during clinic time, and worst case will sign them the next morning. I’d attribute this to a combination of being clear on my own boundaries, plus being deliberate in making the EMR work for me (leaning it really well), plus optimizing workflows in clinic.”
The office closes between 12pm-1pm for lunch, so thankfully my lunch is structured into my work day.
Since having our baby, my husband and I have been using a meal delivery service which makes lunch and dinner logistics so easy.
No scheduled breaks, however I have a lot of unplanned downtime between patients, or when patients no-show.
I am able to accomplish a surprisingly good amount of personal admin tasks during downtime at work, so I make sure to always have a task or two calendared during working hours.
I find that its much easier to do these at work, vs at home when I am at the mercy of my two (wonderful) children.
I leave right after seeing my last patient, which typically means getting into my car between 4/4:30pm.
Same commute!
I get home sometime between 5/5:30pm.
With the exception of Monday afternoons or any PTO days, my mom or my husband are in charge of daycare pickup (~4pm), so by the time I get home my kids are already home with grandma and/or dad. Both grandma and dad are very hands on in terms of getting the ball rolling (starting dinner for our toddler, naptime for the baby, unpacking/repacking daycare bag/lunchboxes, household chores) so by the time I get home things are already happening. If I'm lucky and my mom is home during this time, I'll take a quick shower so that its one less thing I have to do after the kids are asleep.
The hours of 5pm - 7pm are a shuffle consisting of VPK homework, dinner, and playtime for my toddler and snooze/bottle, pureed food, playtime for my baby.
HACK: at 7pm, everyone stops what they are doing and we do a "cleanup challenge." My son will set an Alexa timer for somewhere between 5-10 minutes and we (my toddler, my husband and myself) will clean/tidy up in silence (the silence was my son's idea and he thinks its hilarious - I don't ask why but find it helps us focus on tidying, so I'm all for it). The "challenge" part refers to seeing if we can get everything sorted before the timer sounds (spoiler - we always do). I find this is a huge hack because 1. my toddler is verrrrry into the "challenge" aspect of this and finds the activity to be very exciting and 2. it takes the pressure off of me to clean/tidy as I go during dinnertime/playtime because I know we will have a dedicated time for cleaning up where the whole family is all hands on deck.
7:15pm is bath time, followed by bedtime. My husband and I swap every day - ie if I put the baby to bed last night, then "today" will be my turn to put the baby to sleep while my husband puts our toddler to sleep and vice versa.
Our kids are usually down for the night by 8:15pm. After that, my husband and I have dinner, watch Jeopardy together, and hang out. I am an evening/night showerer, so I shower during this time if I haven't already and do skincare (double cleanse, serum, moisturizer). I truly treasure this time of the day because I feel accomplished about everything I've done, and I simply love hanging out with my husband.
I will read a little on my kindle, then go to sleep. I'm usually asleep by 9:30/10pm.
My son has dinner at around 5:15pm. A nice hack I have developed with regards to his dinner is to dedicate geographical fridge space to his foods (leftovers that I know he will like, his favorite go-to dinner options, food my mom has made for him). They all go in the same place in the fridge (topmost shelf for us) so that I have some visual guidance about what options I have for his dinner. I find that this minimizes some mental gymnastics and also pushes me to use up his food in a way that makes sense and avoids spoilage/throwing away food.
It's easier for me to eat after the kids are down, which ends up being at around 8:30pm.
My husband and I both love cooking, but right now in the season of life we're in we just don't have the time, so we are more than happy to heat up our prepared meals from a meal delivery service and that's that. We also have fun picking out meals every week, so while I hope we will get back into cooking one day, for now outsourcing cooking has been a lifesaver.
UPDATE - the sharer generously responded: “We use Cook Unity. There’s lots of variety and overall the meals have been delicious.”
I need to be able to see the surfaces of my home in the morning. This means generally clear kitchen counters, floors, table surfaces. If everything is a cluttered mess in the morning, I feel somewhat overwhelmed and this can become the undertone of my day. Something that makes this easier is having (nice) baskets everywhere so that when it's time for "cleanup challenge", there are already dedicated receptacles available for toys to go into.
Outfit for next day laid out.
Daycare outfits laid out as described earlier.
Bible study podcast while I put my baby to sleep.
The sharer generously responded: “Right now I am listening to A Year in the Bible with Daily Grace.”
Check calendar to make sure I understand what's in store for me for the next day.
I have rule that when I'm home with my kids, my phone "becomes a land line", meaning I plug it in to charge and if I need to access it to send a text/make a call/check anything, I will need to physically walk to my phone and use it where it is plugged in. I find that this helps to minimize distractions so that I can both be present with my kids and make sure the afternoon/evening tasks are getting done so that bathtime and bedtime are not super delayed. The downside is that as a result I am not as responsive to incoming texts or calls, but that's kind of the point.
The biggest tip is to be extremely judicious regarding who you decide to marry. Marry an adult, not a man/woman-child! :)
This has been/is a work in progress. As our lives continue to change, and with our family recently expanding, I find that this has been a bit of a moving target as we both evolve into our roles. Thankfully I have a partner who is extremely hands-on and down to tackle life/the load to the fullest with me. Because of my personality, I am the executive function-er at home and the reality is that I tend to notice action items/things that need to be done more readily than he does, so I am working on being OK with delegating.
I really believe that you cannot pour from an empty cup. With this in mind, I am very intentional with making sure that I always have an upcoming "cup filler" scheduled in the calendar, whether that be a massage, facial, wash/blow dry, you name it. I firmly believe (and have proven to myself in the past) that if I don't proactively block time aside for these things, someone else will take that time away from me.
I love exercise but sadly have not exercised since the early stages of my second pregnancy (over a year ago now). I am an all-or-nothing thinker (working on it...) and have trouble enjoying exercise in earnest if I don't have somewhat of a routine in place. Now that my baby is more than halfway to toddlerhood, I am starting to see how I might get back into an exercise routine slowly, but for the time being it is a ball that I am OK with dropping.
YES! I am outsourcing's biggest fan! We outsource:
Yardwork
Laundry
Most meals
House cleaning
Cleaning garbage/recycling bins
Grocery delivery (Instacart)
I like to think of outsourcing as "purchasing my sanity" and giving myself the freedom/mental permission to accept that I can't (and don't want to) "do it all" (whatever that even means). Once I let go of this expectation of myself, life felt a lot easier.
Two practical things:
I find that batching small, amorphous tasks into one discrete block of time is very beneficial. For example, instead of opening delivery packages as they trickle in throughout the week, I schedule one half hour every week (usually on Sunday mornings, recurring on my calendar) where I sit and open all packages, process their contents/put stuff away, etc. That way, my brain can let go of thinking about when I will get around to opening packages because it already knows where in my week that task sits. I do this with other life tasks on varying scales.
I am NOT a fan of clutter and find that for better or worse, my physical environment has a propensity to affect my mood. For this reason, I always have a donation box "loading up" in my garage. I repurpose our biggest Amazon box and leave it in the garage and fill it up as I go with items we have outgrown (unwanted toys, clothes, kitchen items, you name it). My family knows that if there is an item that has worn out its welcome or that we generally don't want anymore, it goes in the box. When the box is full, I schedule a donation pickup and it magically disappears from my porch (and my life). That way, I get to rid myself of clutter and give to someone in need. Gets rid of the huge Amazon box, too!
Two more woo-woo things:
With everything I have going on as working mom of two small kids, the biggest thing I have learned is that it is so important to be able to distinguish between glass balls and plastic balls (as in, when deciding which balls can be dropped). If I'm living my life as though all of the balls are glass, then life can seem scary. When I'm feeling overwhelmed I find that this analogy (it's not mine! It's Bryan Dyson's) is extremely grounding.
I've realized in my young-adulthood that having a defensive disposition towards life is so mentally taxing. Accepting advice and allowing the village to do village things (accepting help) doesn't make us weak. It gives us freedom to relax and grow into our lives.
Thank you so much to this woman for generously sharing. These publish every Thursday!
Encouraging comments always welcome!
If you have questions or even hang-ups about what someone shared, you are welcome to ask a question for the sharer in the same kind, genuinely curious way you would if you were looking at that woman in her eyes. She might respond through me.
If comments are judge-y or mean-spirited, I reserve the right to delete comments. I can handle being criticized about my own work here (and even still, to a degree – I’m also a person), but I go into full mama bear mode when people come after my people – including women who are being vulnerable and sharing in the first place.
Thanks to the vast majority of people who are so kind!
I’m Kelly Nolan, an attorney-turned-time management strategist and mom of two. After experiencing overwhelm as a young patent litigator in Boston, I figured out a time management system to help me show up in the ways that I wanted to at work and at home – without requiring my brain to somehow magically remember it all. I now teach other professional working women how to manage their personal, family, and career roles with less stress and more calm clarity using realistic time management strategies. My system, the Bright Method, has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, and my work has been published in Forbes, Fast Company, Business Insider, and more.
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