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!
If you’re ready to learn a calendar-based life + career system designed for professional working women, enrollment for my 10-week Bright Method program opens on August 6, 2026 at 11am CST. At that time, you can reserve your spot for the September 9 or October 1 start date. Learn all about it & jump on the waitlist here.
In the words of one woman who went through the program:
“After going through Kelly’s [time management course], I sleep better. I am less anxious about all that I have to do because I know I have a system that allows me to prioritize the most important things first. I feel more put together and I have more confidence in saying yes or no… My husband and I are better partners to each other because we’re getting all the stuff that takes time out in the open and making a game plan for who does what and when.
“I also had more confidence in pushing a prioritization conversation at work with my boss and business partners. I was able to get alignment to work on 3 big priorities for the quarter - only 3. With two weeks left in the quarter, we’re on track to deliver all 3, something my boss didn’t expect would be possible.”
– S.N., Finance Director & Mom
I hope you join! And send any questions my way – happy to talk out whether it would work for you, your main concerns, timing, etc. Send me a message, and I hope to see you in the program – join the waitlist!
Okay, on to the good stuff!
Profession: Sr Director, Finance at Fortune 500 Company
Hybrid - mostly WFH (1-3 days/wk) and travels a lot for work
Partner: Yes (WFH)
Children: Yes - 3 kids (5 yo. & 3-yo. twins)
North Carolina
Late 30s
Alarm at 5am, get dressed and out the door to a 5:30am workout class.
Home by 6:30, make a quick smoothie, feed the dog and let her out, disassociate for a few minutes, and try to get out of the shower before anyone else is up around 7am.
For whatever reason, if I'm not going to work out I usually "sleep in" until 6:15 and shower and start to get ready before kids are up.
My goal is to go to the class 4x a week during the week, but if I need the extra hour of sleep, I take it.
Also once in a while I get up at 5am to get in some extra hour or so of work done without interruptions.
I try to get at least 30-45mins to myself in the morning regardless, and I know I'm so fortunate to have kids that will sleep until 7am most days.
7am-8am: kids up, fed, dressed, etc. This hour can be pure chaos or a really fun way to start the day. And you never know which kid will be in which mood, so we roll with it. Breakfasts are easy things on rotation - frozen waffles, overnight oats prepped in advance, or PB&J toast are some of my kids' favorites. I squeeze in getting myself dressed and ready if I'm not totally done by 7am.
I keep my makeup routine short, but my wildcard is my hair - which is naturally wavy and some days looks amazing while air drying and some days requires some time with heat tools to look presentable. I try to line up my hair wash days and WFH days.
My husband usually does the morning drop off at our daycare, 10 mins from home.
If I'm WFH, I head upstairs to my office as soon as my husband pulls out of the driveway and get to work. If I'm going into the office, I leave anywhere from 7:45-8:15 and it's a 20 min commute. Occasionally if I have a slower morning or my husband has an earlier call, I'll do the kid drop off and make my way to the office. On those mornings it's about 45-50 mins from home to office including the drop off time.
Everything that can be done the night before is done. Kids clothes picked out, my clothes picked out if I'm going to the office, my lunch packed, etc.
Right now all three kids are in the same daycare with lunch and snacks provided - we just drop them off with a water bottle. My oldest starts kindergarten in the fall and our routine will have to really adapt.
On WFH days, I might have to get right onto a call in which case my transition is a sprint from loading up the kids in the driveway to my office upstairs while trying not to spill my coffee. If I don't have a call first thing I try to take a few minutes to look over my day again, my to do's, and be intentional with how I want the day to go.
In office days I listen to music or an audio book on my drive and feel ready to go when I get to the office. I do sometimes take a call in the car but try to avoid that, and just get to the office before it starts or head in right after.
My workday is a mix of meetings (in person/virtual), team leading, and individual work. Some standing/recurring and some more ad hoc or last minute.
My more demanding deliverables are timed around our fiscal calendar, so there's a cyclical nature to my work.
I do a few simple things to try to stay effective and move longer term projects forward.
First, I take an inventory of my calendar on Friday afternoon for the following week and plug open gaps with time blocks. This can be flexible as needed.
Second I keep one virtual sticky note on my desktop and make updates to it all day every day. It is a poor man's kanban board but I found that keeping things really simple allows me to keep up with it. The note is in 3 categories:
1. Emails I sent that require a response (this was a game changer for me! once something leaves my inbox I let it leave my brain, this list keeps the items I need a response on at the top)
2. Short Term to Dos (tactical things with a due date, whether self determined or explicitly required)
3. Long Term Projects
I put tactical items in #2, whether they relate to #3 or not. I find that big broad priorities are hard for me to get started on, but if I can get some momentum with a tactical related 'to-do', I can keep things moving.
When blocking out time in my calendar, if there is a must-do, I label it with what I plan to use that time for. Otherwise I just keep it generic and reference my running list to determine how to best use my time during that window.
I also have a block on my calendar from 4:30pm-5pm every day to avoid late/last min calls before I have to transition back to mom mode.
WFH - I make something quick and usually eat in the kitchen away from my desk, often using that time to catch up with my husband if he's also taking a break.
In Office - mostly I pack and eat at my desk. The commute in/out takes an hour out of my day and something has to give. Sometimes I will get lunch with a coworker or participate in a working lunch meeting in the office but for the most part I work straight through.
I don't schedule specific breaks but try to take a few to stretch my legs. If I'm on a call and not needed on video I'm usually stretching or walking around my office, at least on WFH days.
WFH - I work up until 5pm (with last half hour blocked) and then go pick up the kids at daycare.
Office - I try to leave by 4:30 and either go pick up the kids or sometimes my husband will do that depending on our days.
WFH - I don't have a good answer. It's a 10 min drive which is not enough but I do my best to ignore my work phone from 5-8pm.
Office - the drive home is 20 mins or 30 mins to daycare, and I listen to music or a book depending on my mood.
So far we've protected our evenings from kid activities - although I see that changing soon too with potential sports and activities. Most evenings I get home with the kids at 5:30. My husband usually has dinner done or in process.
5:30-7:00 is dinner, playing, taking walks outside. But sometimes we're exhausted and turn the TV on for the kids and just sit. We try to get dinner cleaned up during this time and include the kids so we're not left with a mess after bedtime.
By 7pm we all head upstairs to start the bedtime routine, we do baths or showers every other night. Highly recommend getting your little ones in the shower (let them bring a toy and call it a car wash), so much faster. All three into pjs and start to wind down. Then my husband and I alternate, one of us taking the twins and get them down by 7:30, the other spends a little more 1:1 time with our oldest and finish his bedtime around 8-8:30. We usually trade off so that every other night one of us is done sooner. If either of us has something more urgent at work to get back to, we shift things around to try to free that person up sooner.
Once kids are done, I might finish something up for work, or more likely watch a show on the couch with my husband. I try to be in bed by 10pm.
I suggest marrying a former professional chef. 10/10 would recommend!
He takes the lead on cooking for sure, but we often try to have a loose plan heading into the week and trade off on grocery shopping. With him fully remote, he might start something in the oven in the afternoon ahead of dinner, and we're usually eating either right as the kids get home or after a little time outside to unwind. Playing outside is nearly year round in NC, even in the winter when it gets dark we pull out light up toys to take on a walk with the kids.
We also always do Pizza Fridays, which everyone looks forward to!
As I mentioned, getting everything ready that I can. If I plan to workout I pull those clothes out too and leave them in the bathroom so I can get dressed quickly and try not to wake my husband. We both prefer a clean kitchen before bed and trade off getting that done before and after kid bedtimes. I might run some laundry or do some other smaller admin task too.
We have consistent bath nights which helps everyone know what to expect.
Avoiding our work phones while we're with our kids - keeping a separate phone for work makes it so much easier.
Even before kids, we have always had a knack for divide and conquer. My husband has the lead on cooking, general house handy man, car maintenance, and dealing with any repair people or lawn crews. I handle more of the mental load items, keeping up with kids clothes/sizes, school parties, etc. I also handle our finances and most other family admin things.
We share a google calendar and that is a huge help.
We typically have a 'staff meeting' on Friday afternoon or Sunday night looking at the week ahead to confirm who is handling what related to kid appointments or anything else that needs taken care of outside of the usual.
I know it sounds lame but going to my bootcamp classes in the mornings with some other friends/neighbors! Right now most of my time outside of work otherwise is dedicated to my kids, but I'm lucky to live in a great family neighborhood where the kids play in the evenings and we can socialize with the other parents.
Once per month, we have a standing Saturday night babysitter and do something just my husband and I. Most of our friends are in the same season of life so we try to catch up with friends on the weekends and do kid friendly things.
I do Burn Bootcamp classes ~4x week, most of the time at 5:30am. They are 45 minute classes and it's a real community for me too. If I'm remote I might sneak into a noon or 4:30pm class if I missed my early wake up, and I often go on Saturday mornings and bring the kids to their Child Watch. For me, the physical activity and time to myself make me a much better human and parent.
In this phase of life, absolutely. We had 3 kids under the age of 3 when the twins came, and that forced us to quickly admit we needed as much help as we can get.
Kids in full time daycare
Once a month deep cleaners
Lawn service
We also get a few hours a week of household manager help from our former full time nanny. She comes once per week and folds and puts away all the clean laundry (we run all of our laundry the day before or morning before she comes so it's done), does light tidying, and any small organization projects. She knows our kids and our house and this requires very little work on my part other than to run the loads of laundry ahead of time. She also comes for 2 hours on Sunday afternoons to hang with the kids. I use that time to grocery shop, take a nap, catch up on work, or just hang out with her and the kids too. The extra hands are always helpful.
As our kids get older and we lose the full day coverage of daycare I expect we'll do after care at the elementary school, but possibly also ramp up some household manager hours.
Going from no kids to 3 kids in 2.5 years really rocked me. Now that we are out of baby survival mode, my husband and I both are trying to really be intentional with our time and where we bring in help. Having help in the home frees us up to be more present on weekends with the kids, but while still including them in household tasks and chores so they learn how to contribute.
I travel a few times per quarter, and my husband from time to time too. We learned early on that solo parenting on weeknights after a full day of work is just...hard. So we try to line up a babysitter or my mother in law to come over on those evenings and be an extra hand for the dinner to bedtime rush. We try to limit our nights away from home, even if that means a really early flight out or late night back in after a trip.
I also stopped looking at my time as work vs. personal. Instead I look at what I need to get done while I have FT childcare and what can be done another time. For instance, I make nearly all of my appointments (health related, haircuts, etc) during the workday and offset the time as needed on nights or weekends. I'm fortunate to have the flexibility in my career to do this. I also think it's healthy for my kids working from time to time.
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.
→ Learn more on my website, come learn bite-sized strategies with me on Instagram, or jump into my free 3-day program.
Click here to go to the HISMD index!
Send it to your friend – or the whole group chat!
Thanks for being here!
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.