How I Juggle Two Kids + My Biz Full Time - A Day in the Life

As a small business owner and working mom, I’m always curious to see how other people manage their day to get everything done and juggle mom life with working. I know from experience this is a constant struggle.

In my life, things are NEVER consistent. Which is one of my major problems areas, I just want to be able to count on my schedule but as it turns out, the only thing I can count on is inconsistency.  

Managing my daily schedule and work + life routine is always a work in progress. Circumstances change so quickly around here. 

So here’s a look at how I spent two days. It's really great reminder that I'm actually doing ok.

Tuesday: 

My kids are both home with me all day on Tuesdays. I have these days blocked out for blogging and working ON my biz, instead of client work, but I also have to respond to emails and social media messages.

7:20 - baby wakes up. Toddler wakes up. All three of us snuggle and giggle in bed. 

7:50 - movie for kids. Coffee started. Yoga time. Move laundry to dryer. (I also started a fresh load that I literally left in the washer for an entire week. I had to wash it twice to get the smell out.)

8:05 - My yoga is interrupted by a stinky diaper. Give kids crackers. (I promised her last night, she could have some when she woke up. Kids never forget anything.) 

8:15 - Restart yoga. Kids decide to join, which means I have a  toddler crawling under legs and a baby pulling himself up by my pants. Very zen. 

8:45 - More snuggles and playing while we finish watching The Incredibles. “We” love this one. For the record, snuggles is code for nursing and a clingy toddler. 

9:15 - We have breakfast. The kids have pancakes and I have eggs + toast. 

9:35 - Reply to emails and messages quickly. 

10:00 - shower, get dressed, dress the kids, ready to head out the door for errands. I try to schedule all my errands and appointments on Tuesdays because then it doesn’t interrupt my alone time. Although, it’s much more work to take the kids all over the place

11:00 - All the errands. Gas station, coffee stand, three stores in the next town over, (plus a few phone calls, because after three times of loading and unloading to not find what I was looking for. boo.) stop at a friend’s house, one more store, and then a quick stop at my sister’s house to drop something off. And home. Whew. 

1:15 - 2:15 - Lunch. Toddler did not want to eat. I also chopped and prepped some extra stuff for a couple of dinners this week. I’m actually pretty proud of myself for doing some of this ahead of time. Go me. 

2:15 - Reply to a few more messages. Pick up the house a little bit.  Get Lizzy ready for ballet! 

3:15 - Lizzy’s first ballet class! She loved it. I signed her up for the program at the end, which means we are committed until June. (This might be the first sign of insanity.)

4:45 - Got home, start dinner, empty + reload dishwasher. 

5:50 - Dinner time. I made Shepards pie and rolls. It was pretty good, we’ve decided to add it to our normal rotation list.

Which is something I’m working on creating for my every so picky family. A list of 20-30 dinners that are tried and true favorites, so that meal planning and shopping is much simpler. This is thank to A Simplified Life by Emily Ley. I’ve heard of this idea before, but we are just now implementing. 

7:15 - Kids + hubby head to bed with stories. (Hubby gets up at 2:45 am, so he’s in bed early). Me + laptop in the recliner to answer more emails. And catch up on some videos from an online summit.

9:00 - Random creative steak with tons of motivation - I create the waitlist landing page for a course and ended up staying up until 11:00. Whoops. This happens to me a lot, I’m a total night owl. 

Wednesday -

On Wednesday’s I have at least 3-ish hours of alone time in the mornings. I usually try to find childcare for the afternoons too, because I can get so much more done when I’m alone. Both kids will go to my mother-in-law’s house once or twice a week, it also depends on my hubby’s schedule.

7:20 - Toddler wakes up first today, comes to snuggle. 

7:45 - Buddy wakes up and needs to nurse and snuggle while Big Sister gets herself an “o-gurt” while I feed the baby.

Then we all snuggle and giggle in bed. I LOVE this time together. Even though I’m usually only half awake. (I’m coming to realize this helps me start the day off right. They wake me up enough to actually get out of bed.) 

8:15 - We all get dressed and ready for the day.

8:55 - Drop Lizzy off at school. ON TIME! There was no confetti, which is confusing because the fact that we were on time is amazeballs and should have been celebrated. 

9:05 - Drop Carter off with my sister. She started watching him a couple of days while Lizzy is at school to give me more focused work time.

9:10 - 10:30 - This was a weird time of eating breakfast, doing my hair, (I’d really rather do all of this before drop off, but it never happens) catching up on the last episode of The Big Bang Theory in the background, reply to messages and emails, and client work to-dos. 

10:30-11 - Strategy call with my client + friend, Ashley from Beauty Meets Girl! 

These are my favorite calls. I take all the research, notes, and ideas to the client. Tell her what I’m thinking and how its going to help her reach her goals! It totally helps that Ashley is super cool and she’s a mega supporter and friend. She was one of my first clients when I started this biz, and I’m LOVING getting to work with her again. Check out her facebook page here. 

12:00 - Go live on FB page to announce my waitlist for my Illustrator course. woo hoo! 

12:15 - Headed over to my sisters to nurse the baby. He’s going to stay there for a few more hours today. My sister-in-law picked up Lizzy from school. Thank goodness. I need an afternoon to work. 

12:30 - Drive down to the coffee shop to work and have lunch. I love writing down here surrounded by books. I only work here like once a month or so, but it's really nice to get out of the house. 

I finishing writing the copy for my new Designer on Demand service for past clients.  Fill in some of the details for this post. And write emails for the previously mentioned course I’m launching in a few weeks.

Only two hours of writing time, but I got so much done! 

3:30 - I leave the coffee shop, because I had a virtual coffee chat scheduled with a fellow designer but she had to reschedule at the last minute. I head over to pick up the baby and he is taking a nap. So I grab my laptop and work for a little bit at my sister’s house. 

4:30 - Go pick up Lizzy from my sister in law’s house. 

5:00 - Dinner time shuffle. This includes cooking, cleaning, getting the kids ready for bed. 

7:00 - Everyone else goes to bed and I stay up working for a few more hours. Client work this time. 

10:00 - Bed. This is my ideal bedtime. High five, self. You went to bed on time. 

These were two fairly perfect days, I consider myself lucky to have two really productive days in a one week, plus I did a workout! 

My next lifestyle post will be a breakdown of how I plan my weeks. I just recently started planning daily themes that have been extremely helpful and stopped me from expecting way too much to get done! 

If you really like the lifestyle posts, you'd probably also like my weekly coffee chat emails. They come out on Wednesdays, sign up here. 

What does a typical day look like you for? I’m always curious how others manage to get it all done! 

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