I really love reading when people share a day in their life. It’s fascinating to get a peek behind the curtain of the things they do, as well as how they do it. Since last month Kimberly and I took time off the blog and I began really focusing on my time and energy management, I’ve gotten smart about taking solid notes about what I do and how I do it during any given day. It felt right to share one of my days.

Often, I get asked how I manage to get work done or how I stay disciplined since I work from home. It’s natural to me now, but it took a lot of creating blocks of time and parceling out my energy in appropriate ways. I know I get worn out by late morning and see another surge of energy if I leave the house for a bit or do something entirely unrelated to editing or writing or books. That’s reflected here. I’ve found that using some of the tools Kara Lowentheil offers up for how to get things done has been unbelievably useful for how I work, and it’s what allows me to get as much into a day as I do. I sprung for a fancy paper planner and that, combined with using the digital task management system Things, is how I do it.

Without further ado, here’s how my Thursday, July 11, 2019 played out. This was one of the first lighter days work-wise I’ve had in a while, and I let myself enjoy that quiet thinking time.

A Day In The Life

4:45 AM: My alarm usually goes off at this time, and usually, I hit snooze. But not today! I’m up and getting ready for the day.

5:30-6:45 AM: I need to enjoy two slow cups of tea while I wake up, plot out the day in my agenda, then catch up on my internetting. I typically read the local news, scroll social media, schedule out Twitter, and respond to any quick emails.

6:45 – 8:15 AM: Every other week, I teach a mother and daughter duo a private yoga lesson on Thursday mornings. They are both such a delight and getting to teach them at their home is a real joy. This week, we did some hip openers, and I talked a lot about inversions and the value of doing legs up the wall pose.

8:30 – 10 AM: I ate breakfast (two hardboiled eggs and fruit) while updating Book Riot’s Pinterest account with the content from the prior day. I also drafted the “What’s Up in YA?” newsletter for the following Monday.

10 – 11 AM: I had a phone interview with someone doing an episode of the Annotated podcast with me for September. This guest is a special collections librarian and we nerded out about her job and about how her job is connected to the topic of the podcast.  Once we finish the recording, I had the files uploaded and transcribed so I could use them in the script.

11 – 11:30 AM: I have an interview for the same podcast for Saturday morning, so I made sure everything was ready for it — including drafting the questions so the guest would have them in advance.

11:30 – 12:30 PM: I enjoyed lunch, along with catching up on YA book news. I spend time every day seeing what news has hit to collect for sharing with newsletter readers, Book Riot contributors, and, of course, my own edification.

12:30 – 1:30 PM: My best friend calls and we chat for about an hour. She lives in Utah and we used to have regular phone dates when I drove for yoga teaching, but when my schedule changed we found lunch time calls worked well for both of us.

1:30 – 2:30 PM: I used this time to do some thinking about what I want to write and about my job more broadly. I also had the chance to catch up on work emails, to assign out content for some of the Book Riot contributors, and to draft some of my own posts for work.

2:30 – 3:30 PM: This was the time I used to do some script planning for my Annotated episode, as well as plan out the books I want to make sure I request and read in anticipation of recording August’s All The Books podcast with Liberty. I also scheduled the next episode of Hey YA: Extra Credit, which posts the next Wednesday (but I’d gotten the file early so decided to do it right then, rather than wait).

3:45 – 5:45 PM: Every week, on Thursdays, my pal Alyssa and I have dedicated writing dates at a local cafe. My goal is 2,000 words on this day, and I did a little bit more than that. We ended up at a cafe that did not have air conditioning, so it was hot (it was high 90s that day) and we decided to pick a place we knew had air for our date the next week.

6:00 PM: The benefit of where we worked, though, was it was across the street from my new salon, so I got to walk over and get my hair colored. I’ve been so overwhelmed with work stuff up until this week that the break to get my hair done was so wonderful. My stylist and I talked about horror movies, since we both love them, and I walked out feeling like a brand new person.

7:00 PM: I got home and my husband had made dinner. We caught up with each other’s day, and we talked about how my stylist did such a good job with my hair it looked like I’d gotten it cut and not just colored. We watched some episodes of “Shark Tank,” now that it’s streaming on Hulu.

9:00 PM: I get up early, which also means I go to bed early. Add to that the social interaction and creative work accomplished, I was bushed. I tend to crawl into bed with a book for a bit before shutting off the light, feeling the cats climb on me, and fall asleep.