I’ve always loved reading day in a life posts, so thought it was about time I did one myself! I guess this is a little similar to my old WIAW posts, but with a bit more detail and hopefully these will be more interesting. I don’t particularly think my life is majorly exciting but with me working for myself I guess it is different from the norm. This day in the life is from last Thursday. I had woken up at 5am and then dozed until James snoozed his alarm at 5.50 then woke up properly with my alarm at 6am as usual.
I checked emails on my phone then got up and made the bed. Then I sat and did my 5 breaths as I’m trying to get into the habit of starting each day with 5 deep purposeful breaths to help me focus and get my head in the game. It really helps! Then it was off to the kitchen for my warm water and lemon juice which I drank while I got ready and put my make up on.
I made a big bowl of creamy porridge with blueberries and tahini, and ate that while my computer booted up and I started to check my Facebook and Twitter. I also shared a cool picture I’d seen on my Instagram account and doubled checked what was on my to do list for the day.
By 7am I was going through my email, I think I had about 20 emails from the day before so I didn’t get through them all. I also double check that day’s blog post to make sure I don’t have any spelling mistakes and that it’s basically not a load of crap ;-)
I used to have coffee at this time, but now I just have a mug of warm water as that seems to be better for my stomach. I also take my supplements and a small glass of apple cider vinegar diluted in water.
By 8am I had to leave a couple of emails and start getting ready to drive to meet a health coaching client. It was this particular clients final session, so I got her a nice card and gift:
I finished off preparing a salad for lunch to take with me, then made sure I had everything I needed and headed off.
The weather had started off a bit grey, but was lovely by the time I reached the cafe where we were meeting. I had a peppermint tea.
I love and hate final sessions with my clients, on one hand it’s great to recap everything they’ve achieved, but it’s also sad to not see them again, although we do usually keep in touch. Most of my clients are over Skype, so it is nice to be able to see a client face to face. After a lovely session I jumped in the car and drove to my office as I was working a few hours in my charity manager job. Currently I’m working on some support information for new social enterprises which I really enjoy.
It’s a couple of the girls birthday’s coming up, so the day before I’d made a blueberry banana bread to take in for our little get together. One of the girls is gluten and diary free, so I made it paleo. I have to say it was delicious, recipe coming soon!
Unfortunately the girl who has the intolerance’s couldn’t make it in that day, but I shared it with one of my other colleagues and she really enjoyed it as well. I had two slices (yum!) and a green tea.
At 1pm I had the salad I’d made which included lettuce, spinach, beetroot, tinned mackerel, jalapeños, and some balsamic vinegar:
So happy to be back on the big salads again! After that I quickly checked my emails, blog comments and social media.
I was only doing a couple of hours in the office, so got finished up and drove home in the sunshine, it was gorgeous!
When I got home I popped the computer on and checked my to do list. I phoned up to renew my car insurance (securing a discount, woo hoo!) and then set about making some healthy flapjacks to take to my Care and Share community group the next day. I made two batches so there’s plenty for everyone. I based the recipe on my apple, pecan and maple flapjacks (I also posted the recipe for these on my Instagram)
I ate about half a flapjack for taste testing of course, plus a few raisins from the bag and then finished off a bottle of coconut water which I’m addicted to at the moment!
I then got a rather important email come through. The day before I’d had a call with a publisher about me being a contributing writer to a recipe book. It was all very exciting, but the fee I was being offered would not have covered my time given the work that would have been involved. I spent some time stewing about that before emailing back declining the offer. It’s pretty scary to turn down something that feels like a really big deal, but as I’m working for myself, I have to place a higher value on my time. The good thing is that I was contacted in the first place I guess, plus they’ve been back in touch so we shall see!
To help get me out of that funk, I did 20 minutes of yoga. I didn’t use a video or app and but just did what I felt like including some sun salutations without the up dog as it hurts my stomach. Instead I hold high plank for a breath then just go into downward facing dog from there. I’m also loving forward folds that stretch my hamstrings!
I felt miles better after that :-) Then I went to clean up in the kitchen and start to prepare dinner. I had made a big portion of red lentil and new potato curry earlier in the week, so I had a serving of that with steamed kale:
I made James a quick ham, cheese and mushroom omelette with spinach as I’d only had one chicken breast when I’d made his curry earlier in the week! Sometimes it’s just easier for us to have different meals as he isn’t into beans and lentils like I am. We watched an episode of Grimm that we’d recorded while we ate dinner. I also had some of my home made banana peanut butter froyo with chot shot as dessert:
After washing the dishes I was back at the computer for an hour between 7 and 8pm to write a blog post. James always makes me a cup of mint tea:
These days I’m wrecked by 8pm so I turned the computer off, went and washed my face, took my supplements and jumped into bed to watch Netflix and read:
I ended up starting to re watch Life on Mars again, it’s one of my faves! My about 9pm I fancied a little treat, so had a couple of bites of dark chocolate egg. I felt myself dozing off so brushed my teeth and then fell asleep at about 10pm. Happy Days!
One of the things about working the way I do is that no two days are ever the same. I’m going to try and find a little routine for myself, as how my days are filled changes day to day and week to week. I have to admit it took me a while to get used to that way of working as I’m a lover of routine!
Do you like a lot of different things to do each day or do you prefer doing similar things day in and day out? Do you like ‘day in the life’ style posts?
Hi, this is a great post mainly cos I’m basically a nosey b***! I wish I could get up earlier, we usually surface around 7.15 and then it’s all go to get up & out. I work all day Monday and Friday and then weds afternoons so on my work days it’s up & out, whilst the other days I’m out to the gym on Tuesdays and possibly Thursdays. I do lots of different things during the week – if I’m not at my desk job I might be working on some environmental education stuff I do, or I might be doing chores or shopping, I am also part of our workplace choir and I’m part of a church group too. Oh and there’s always a fair amount of cooking & baking involved too – and plenty of time on the net that I probably should be spending more productively!
I have recently been feeling quite burnt out by the constant changing that my week involves – I often find I’m hurtling from one thing to the next and don’t really end up spending any time mentally preparing for things, it’s just another thing to tick off the ‘to do’ list. Maybe I should try writing down all I do in a week so I can really see how and where I’m spending my time, so I can make the most of it. I do like being able to direct my time for much of my week but I do often feel like I am not using my time very well and probably need to build in more structure so I don’t waste it. Ironically that may mean building in time where I don’t have specific plans so I can have a bit of a stock take!
Haha, I’m glad I’m not the only noisy one ;-) Sounds like you have a very varied week, but I can totally relate to that burned out feeling from all the change. Writing down everything you do is a great idea, I’m sure you can get worksheets on http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/
Ooh thanks I’ll give that a look!
I love Day in the Life posts. It’s always interesting to see all the little details that don’t normally make it into a person’s blog.
You are good for doing your bed as soon as you get up! Mine is one of the last things I do. I have been known to make it, then get back into it for bed straight away that night!
How exciting, being asked to contribute to a recipe book. Such a shame it wouldn’t have been worth your while, but good news that they’ve been in touch again…fingers crossed you can work something out. :)
Well the recipe book thing is looking better so fingers crossed! I’m a bit of a Monica from friends with stuff like making the bed hehe ;-)
I love these sorts of posts. I love to know what people get up to in the day. Especially when they live interesting lives ;-) My days are so routine-based and samey. I’d love to have a bit more spontaneity! But when you have an office job 9-5 is makes it very boring and hard to do things differently.
But then saying that I do love a good routine. You feel safe and secure in a routine!
The fro-yo looks absolutely scrumptious!
I think a routine is a good thing, there’s lots to be said about a 9-5 routine – I think it gives you more mental energy to do things outside work!
Lovely post, I’m nosy so love these kinds of posts ;-) I may very well nick your idea and do one … it will be shorter though heehee
You definitely should Lara, I’d love to be noisy and see more of what you get up to day to day!
I love day in the life posts! I was actually thinking of doing one recently… like yourself, no two days are the same, but I do have a kind of ‘ideal day’ template I’d like to share. Yours seemed pretty ideal to me though!
You should definitely do one, I certainly love reading them!
I adore “a day in the life” style posts..this made for such an enjoyable read! Its always the case where an average day -for us- wouldn’t feel like anything to write home about, yet to another human, it satisfies the natural curiosity :D . Love the notion of “purposeful breaths” to start the day.
I typically like to have a fixed routine every morning..and sort of let the day roll out according to things on my to-do list. When in the rare circumstance something comes up in the AM, it does throw me out and get me frazzled!
I agree, I always find how others spend their lives interesting. That sounds like a really nice way to approach your days :-)
I have never read a day in the life post before, so this was my first time and I did enjoy it! It’s just interesting to see how other people live! I hope to read more of this kind of blog posts in the future. If I was going to write one, I don’t think it would be very interesting and it would probably something like this: get up, breakfast, work, lunch, gym after work, cooking, eating dinner, cleaning, catching up with stuff on laptop! I think I better leave my ‘day in the life’ post once my life gets more interesting! :-)
Glad you enjoyed it Petra! Just as someone said above, it might not feel that exciting to you, but for others it would be!
I love reading posts like this.
Good for you for turning down the offer too- like you say you need to value yourself and I am sure you will have lots of interest for your lovely recipes.
I like to have a routine but it often goes out of the window if I have a lot of work to mark or paperwork to do as that has to be done in the evenings.
Yep it’s often things like added workload that can knock me off any kind of routine really easily unfortunately!
Love this post, I think its fun to know about how others live their lives and what they get up to!
Hi Laura i was searching on line for ‘working from home as a health coach’ i love these a day in the life posts. I was researching to plan my routine and what I could expect my general day to be like as a health coach. Just passed the first test with IIN so I feel like i need to embrace the whole work ethic now. I love the way that working from home can feel so relaxing, Im sure it doesnt come without its added strains but its really nice to see how it could work. I am currently house and pet sitting so I work from home with visits away, its crazy because I get quite good cash flow from it whilst I study and takes the pressure off me but i have time to study and enjoy what I do. I am not an early riser I have to say so I have decided to structure my day between 11am and 4pm and not to work more than 35hrs a week. My plan is to have one weekend a month to visit friends and family. The rest of my time revolves around self care and time with my hubby. With the exception of the retreats I will be organising for brides through the year. Hopefully when we are in a better position I would like to have a holiday home and four times a year i will have a handful of people stay with us for a mindset retreat. I plan to travel and pursue lots of things on my wish list and then finally one day we can afford a venue of our own.
thank you for sharing an honest view of your day lisa x
Hi Lisa, I’m glad that you enjoyed the post! Sounds like you have a great plan and structure to how you’d like to spend your time :-)
I love this post! So interesting to find out about your day – especially as it’s so varied and fast-paced. I love that you still find time to breath, enjoy some yoga, and eat great food even though you seem to be on the go a lot.
That’s awesome that you were asked to be a contributing writer! I totally understand and respect you turning it down – it takes a lot of guts, and even though I only do a small amount of freelance work, I do turn down jobs if I feel like they won’t pay enough or I simply won’t enjoy writing the content. It feels odd, but my spare time is quite precious, and I would rather be spending it writing about things I kind-of enjoy, for decent money, than writing about dull, difficult subjects for pittance!
Glad you enjoyed it Christina! I absolutely agree on the freelance stuff, I think it’s hard to turn something down when it feels like an opportunity, but then it is all about how you value your time – enjoying the work you’ll be doing makes a huge difference to not only the process but the finished result too!
Love hearing about your life :-) you have such good balance and knowing it took you a bit of time to get there gives me hope I can find mine too! :-) xx
Thanks Sandra, You’ll get there and then it will slip, but then you’ll find your way back, I think that’s the way of life!
I love day in the life posts. I planned to do one a couple of months ago, but I forgot. I will get round to it :)
I love your office area, it’s so cute.
You should definitely do one, it would be really interesting I’m sure!
Interesting post- I like reading about what people get up to!
Lovely post (I’m nosey too!), you’re looking great Laura! Really like the idea of 5 breaths to start off your day, I’m going to try and incorporate this for when I don’t have time to do a little meditation session when I wake up. Also really enjoyed reading about what you said re: placing value on yourself & your time – so true & I had never thought of it like that before!
Oh definitely give the 5 breaths a try, it works so well for me!
Love it – why is so intriguing to ear about someone elses day!? Maybe it just brings anyone who works from home a bit of comfort that they are not the only one:)
I have started doing some more ‘mindful movement’ a blend of pilates yoga and other random stretches i fancy and am loving it. xxxx