My typical day

I am absolutely fascinated by how people spend their time. After all, this is what defines them as a person, what interests them and how they live their lives. So, after reading Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work by Mason Currey (a book that I wish I had been inspired enough to write myself) and taking learnings from Laura Vanderkram’s “Before Breakfast“ podcast, I decided to share my own typical day.

Since I started a new job outside of London, each working day follows a standard path, as there are no external influences that shape or steer it in different directions. This happened a lot when I used to work in the city of London, when going to various events was the highlight of my work days. More on this here.

However, now each day follows the same structure. I wake up at around 6:15 am and leave the house with my partner at around 6:45 am. He drives me to work, which is an absolute bliss. In my previous role, when I was travelling to central London for work, I used to look at couples who were commuting together and feeling so jealous thinking I wish I could share with my partner that precious time in the day, those little moments you have left for yourself in the day before you get into work. Now I can and I am so happy. I look forward to our morning commute, the time we spend in the car together, I don’t think many couples are privileged enough to go to work together.

I arrive at work in between 7:30 am and 7:45 am and I go to the gym for about an hour. My workouts are quite intense and strenuous, but that’s because now, as I am more office bound, I don’t have that much space to move about like I used to do during my previous commute (when I used to walk across London twice a day). Now I need to compensate for that lack of movement by working out more in the gym. I never look forward to going to the gym in the morning, but once I am there, I am keen to get the workout done. So, I start each day productively, as I mean to go on.

Then I am at my desk at 9 am, sipping my first cup of coffee and ready to start the day. Most of my day is spent in meetings and working at my desk in between. I have very little time for lunch and, as I work in a business park, there is nothing luring me outside of the office, apart from the nice weather (on a sunny day, I have my lunch outside on the terrace).

As I am so busy, my work day passes by very quickly and, before I know it, my boyfriend comes back to pick me up at 5:30 pm to go home. This incentivises me to finish my work on time. It is the most blissful time fo the day - the end of the work day, when I can resume my freedom and capitalise on the work-mode productivity to do things for myself, rather than laze about as I get home.

We get home about 7 pm and I am normally starving by then, so it’s time to make dinner. We finish dinner at about 8 pm, which gives me about 2 - 3 hours to enjoy myself, doing some of my gloriously good activities, which bring me so much joy. I go to bed at around 11 pm, looking forward to getting up for another gloriously good typical day.