working Archives - Adventure, baby!

My excellent friend Jayne at Girl Tweets World recently wrote this hilarious look at a day in the life of a non-travelling travel blogger. I absolutely love peeks into people’s lives, especially when they are as funny as Jayne is.

While Jayne and my jobs are fairly similar (we are both WFH writers/bloggers), thinking about how different a child makes the schedule inspired me to write my own day-in-the-life post.

On Mondays and Tuesdays I am with Cheese all day, and there is zero work time, so this is our schedule Wed, Thur and Fri, which are the days she is in preschool. Some times I have a fabulously exciting media event to attend, or a high tea to review, but this is what the majority of my days look like.

7am: Woken up. Usually by a tiny arm thrown around my neck in a gleeful hug, followed by mushy face kisses. If it’s after 7am I’m thrilled. If it’s before 7am I might throw her a yoghurt pouch and turn on Octonauts and try to catch a few more ZZZs.

7:15am: Pull myself out of bed, stumble towards kitchen and turn on kettle to boil the first strong black tea of the day. Imperative for getting anything done.

7:30am: Get Cheese ready for school. I make her lunch the night before so all I have to do is put the lunch boxes and water bottle in her backpack, and double check I packed her hat and spare outfit.

8am: Try and convince Cheese to stop playing, eat her breakfast, and get dressed for school.

8:20am: Remember I need to shower as well and duck in while Alec gets Cheese to brush her teeth and put her shoes on.

8:30am: Out the door to take Cheese to school. It’s about a half hour drive to get there.

9:30am: Home from the school run and ready to start my day. I spend about 30 mins to an hour answering emails, checking in on social media, posting blog posts or images and a bit of faffing around before I start the real work.

10:30-12pm: Solid work time, where I usually complete freelance writing pieces for clients. This might be copywriting for a business website, or writing an article for a travel or parenting website.

12pm-12:30pm: Lunch time. Once a week or so I might meet up with a friend but I have such limited work time that I don’t do it as often as I’d like. Alec and I both work from home so you’d think we would have lunch together more, but we just can’t find the time. I usually make smashed avocado on sourdough with roasted tomatoes and eggs.

12:30-2pm: I finish off any remaining work I might have, but more often than not I spend the time chasing information I need for work, following up on pitches, replying to new emails or sending out new work pitches. If it’s a particularly slow work week I might spend an hour working on a blog post.

2pm: I finish work for the day and take myself for a walk. I like to listen to podcasts while I work, particularly Being Boss.

2:30pm: I drive to pick up Cheese from school and wonder how the time went so quickly.

3pm: Pick up Cheese right on time. If I’m late she gets upset, so I have to make sure I’m there when the door opens. I’ve also seen her try and bolt out the door so it’s always good to be early so she doesn’t escape.

3:05pm: Catch up with Cheese’s teacher – hopefully get a good report for the day, while Cheese whines about how hungry she is. I ask her if she ate her lunch and she always says “No!”. Gee, what a shocker.

3:30-4:30pm: I like to organise play dates for Cheese with her school buddies at nearby playgrounds to let the kids burn off even more energy and so I can catch up with friends at the same time. When we don’t have a play date we will grab blueberry bagels with cream cheese and either do grocery shopping or head to a playground just the two of us.

4:30pm: I drive us home around this time as it’s getting dark and the traffic gets terrible if I wait any longer.

5:30-6:30pm: I play a bit with Cheese, clean out her lunch boxes, make new lunch for the following day, chat with her about what she got up to and who she played with, and make her dinner which she may or may not eat.

6:30-7:45pm: Bath and books time for Cheese. Alec and I take turns reading to her or sitting with her while she falls asleep. I often do the reading so Alec can spend more quality time with her (AKA doing the bedtime sleep battle).

7:45-8:30pm: I make dinner, clean up after Cheese’s dinner and tidy up her toys and general mess while waiting for Alec to emerge victorious from putting the Cheese to sleep.

8:30-9pm: Alec and I eat dinner together. Some days we chat about what we’ve been doing, or what feedback I had from Cheese’s teacher that day. Some days we are too tired to talk and watch TV instead.

9-10:30pm: I work on my blog, edit images, reply to more emails, post pics to Instagram and watch TV. I love mindless TV shows like The Bachelor as I can write at the same time and not miss the plot.

10:30-11pm: Bed time! I read a few pages of a book and fall asleep pretty quickly, absolutely shattered. If I’m lucky I won’t wake again until 7am, but often little Cheese will come in and wake us up wanting milk, more food or a cuddle.

Get more tips on becoming a digital nomad with kids here.

I always thought I’d be the sort of mom who, after having a child and taking maternity leave, would happily go back to the office and resume her career. I wasn’t even that desperate to have a child in the first place. It was one of those things that I thought would be wonderful, to grow our family with a baby, but the priority in my pre-child life was always career and travel.

But then I got pregnant just as my husband and I were making a huge life-changing decision—to move from Sydney to New York City. While I was hoping to transfer with my old employer to New York, a role never came to be, and I ended up resigning at five months pregnant. While my whole life plan was falling apart, I started a new life in New York City. And when the baby came along a few months later, life as we had known it really changed for good—and so did my old priorities.

Jobless in the city
The first year flew by. I took care of our baby full-time and with no pressure of a job to return to, we were free to explore the city’s restaurants, museums, and parks. My kid went to more galleries in her first year of life than most people visit in a lifetime. And while my baby and I were getting to know each other, as well as the city, I discovered something unexpected. I didn’t want to get a job like I’d had before. I had absolutely no desire to leave my baby in care and return to an office job five days a week. Which left me where exactly? While I didn’t want a traditional job, I needed to do something for myself again as the newborn haze lifted and life became manageable again.

Looking for a new life path
My great passions are writing and photography—the two areas where I’d always thought I would end up working. But through various career twists and turns, I ended up in advertising. I enjoyed the life I had created, but it was far from my true love. This new beginning was a chance to explore what I really wanted to do in life. The first step was blogging about our adventures. Then, what began as a simple story about our lives in the city lead to other opportunities, like freelance writing. My new path opened up—the working-from home route had sprung up before me and it was both flexible and creative. My daughter started preschool a few half days a week, and suddenly I had time on my hands to pursue my new career while still be able to spend plenty of quality time with her.

Finding balance
In order to make the work-from-home arrangement work, I adhere to a very strict work schedule—it helps to keep me on track. I allocated time for pitching articles to publications I wanted to have a relationship with, getting my foot in the door with new publications, following up on old pitches, actually writing articles, writing for my blog, building my social media presence, image processing and editing and all of the other administration work. If I don’t get everything finished while my daughter is in care, I get my laptop out again after dinner and spend another few hours trying to get everything done. Of course, life is busier than ever and I don’t get much downtime in the evenings. But the payoff is huge. My career is slowly building back up again, in a way that works around my own schedule, and I have plenty of time to be with my gorgeous daughter. While the money is a lot less, I’m honestly happier, and have found that my needs, cash-wise, are a lot less than they used to be.

Reminding myself what matters most
Some days I question my decision to take this path—days when there are epic tantrums, days when I have more work coming in than I have care for my daughter. And, also, when the opposite happens—days when I can’t get any work and I feel like this path is a failure. What works for me is focusing on the now. Every woman, man, mother and father knows that it’s impossible to have “it all”—all we can do it try our best to do what matters most to us. I keep my priorities front of mind to help create balance in my life. Enjoying the time with my child before she starts school is at the top of the list. There will be more time for work, more time to take a yoga class, more time to go back to the workforce if that’s what I desire. But for right now, this balance I have struck is enough—and life is good.

This article first appeared on MommyNearest.

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