Blogtober Day 15: A Day in the Life
This is basically halfway! I’m so proud of myself for making it this far. Blogtober was a last minute decision but also one heck of a commitment, so to be honest I totally expected to bail out on like, day three. But here I am! Day fifteen and going strong!
Today is all about a day in the life of me. Full disclosure: I’m not that exciting! If you’re nosy like me though, this might be right up your street. Personally I love reading about how other people life their everyday lives. I suppose it’s the kind of thing you don’t really know unless you live with someone, which is what makes it so much fun to read about!
I’m going to write about my typical weekday, seeing as five out of seven days are weekdays. These are also my most consistent days, I wouldn’t even know where to start with a weekend because I do something different every weekend.
A Day in the Life of The Spicy Bean
Waking up 6am – 8:30am
This morning I overslept and woke up at 8:30 which is when I’m supposed to leave the house. Luckily my job is flexible and literally no-one cared that I was late. I just worked an extra half an hour at the end of the day. There’s always still that “oh shit” feeling leftover from many years in retail though.
My aim to get into a routine where I get up at 6am every morning and be productive before work. I’m basically trying to steal back some productive hours so I can fit everything in.
Here’s my ideal morning:
6am – wake up
6:00 – 6:30 – Work out (running or exercise video)
6:30 – 7:00 – yoga and quick shower
7:oo – 8:00 breakfast and study
8:00 – 8:30 finish getting ready for work
8:30 leave the house
More often than not I end up sleeping in until about 7:30, which is very naughty and a habit I need to stop. Exercise is being sacrificed at the moment in favour of snoozing, which isn’t even useful sleep. This is what my morning looks like more realistically:
6am – alarm goes off, snooze
6:00 – 7:30 snooze snooze snooze
7:30 – 8:30 shower and get ready for work, dilly dally a lot
8:30 leave the house (sometimes later if I am being a Prize Dilly-Dallier).
I’m losing an hour and a half to nothing! Thing is, when you’ve just woken up and you’re drowsy, more sleep seems like the best option and I am SO good at justifying it to myself at the time! SO here it is, one of my long term goals, to get into a good morning routine.
My workday 9am – 5pm
I cycle to work every day, especially at the moment while there are road works. Yep, even in the rain. I don my waterproof trousers and coat, look incredibly sexy, and hop on my bike. Cycling is awesome, though it doesn’t always feel like it at the time! By the time I get to work I always feel much more ready for the day after a half an hour cycle than I do after a rage-inducing bus journey.
First thing I do after leaving my bike in bike creche (actually just a bike shed but I like the idea of it chilling with its mates all day while I’m working) is go to my desk and get settled. Sometimes I leave my computer on so I can pick up where I left off the next day, though I’m finding it better lately to start fresh each day.
My job title is “CAD Technician” which means I draw lines and squares that represent various things in AutoCAD, but I also spend a lot of my time lately doing admit tasks. In fact I recently volunteered to help out a lady who’s new to what we do, and it’s somehow become my entire job! I don’t mind, it’s nice to be busy and to really feel like part of the team. Job-wise I’m happy as long as I’ve got a lot to fill my time.
The morning and the afternoon are pretty much the same, except I get tired in the afternoon and start seriously considering if I could nap under my desk haha!
Lunch time is probably the only part of the day where anything different happens. I take my lunch at some point between 1:00 and 2:00 usually, though I only take half an hour because I hate working until half five. This way I get to leave at five and be home by half five. Because I was late today I had to work till half five though, which sucked a bit.
Now it’s autumn I’ve been having soup and bread for lunch, nice and simple. I eat at my desk so I can blog or catch up on other internal stuff on my break. In the summer I’d sometimes go for a walk with my colleague, which is a nice break for the brain. The downside to eating at my desk and sitting next to my project manager is that he has been asking me to do things while I’m trying to have a break recently. I could say no but instead I just take another break later on, which breaks the day up a bit more.
Going home for the evening 5:30 – 11ish
As soon as I get home after cycling for half an hour I throw myself on my bed and bum around on my phone for a bit. This is the one step I HAVE to skip if I have any hope of leaving the house of an evening. Most of the time once I’m home that’s it, but occasionally I want to go to the shop or the gym and if I lay down I definitely won’t go back out. It’s dangerous and sets the tone for the rest of the evening.
After my little rest it’s time for studying and blogging. During Blogtober I’ve been getting my blog posts out before I study, else they wouldn’t get published until 11 at night and no one would read them. I’m trying to spend max 1 hour per post so I’ve got loads of time to study.
I’m on my second module of an OU Engineering degree, and it’s getting really difficult and time consuming already. I coasted a bit through the first module to be honest, and I’m feeling it a lot now. Hopefully the third module won’t be so brutal if I put the work in now really getting to grips with the main concepts. This is the one thing that makes my evenings super intense at the moment!
Winding down
This should start happening around 10:00, but does it ever?? Not really. This is the precursor to my ideal morning, and I think this is where it really all goes wrong. I struggle to fall asleep quickly most days, but I’m sure this will improve dramatically if I get myself into a good bedtime routine.
It should go like this:
10pm – get into bed with a big cup of chamomile tea and write in journal
10:30 – put down journal and read for half an hour
11:00 – lights out and sleep.
It very much does not happen like that at the moment. I haven’t written in my journal for a few weeks now, nor have I read any more of the book I’m reading. This evening routine is to set me up good for the next day, so I really need to get on it. At the moment I’m lucky if I’m asleep by midnight, which would give me less than 6 hours of sleep and that’s not good.
So there you have it! My usual day with parts of my ideal day thrown in! Hope that was at least a bit interesting!
Loved learning about your day. I think it’s so fun that you cycle to work. I wish I had that luxury, haha.
I’ve played with AutoCAD before and boy that was a doozy. I love your cat!!!
I always love hearing about different people’s days, everyone’s lives are always so different to mine! Props to you for cycling to work, I’d love to cycle to uni but my city isn’t really laid out for it (lots of hills and pedestrianised areas that are way too busy to cycle through). A bike creche is such a cute way to put it. Totally agree that your evening routine changes everything about the next day too. Great post!
Megan // https://pixieskiesblog.wordpress.com/
Your morning looks a whole lot like mine! Would love to wake up with enough time to actually breathe but instead it’s rush, rush, rush because I snoozed my alarm for an hour haha. Love this look into your life!
Haha bed just has this way of tempting you to stay a little longer doesn’t it?
I love love love being nosy with people’s days! This has made me think about cycling more. Also that sounds like such a random and awesome job!! So jealous of your fajitas 😋 ok when I actually have a job, if ever, I definitely want to do a post like this!! Lots of love xxx
I love this post! Your “ideal morning” vs. “actual morning” made me laugh out loud! It’s so totally reminded me of me! I have the best intentions when I go to bed, but I’m just so tired when I wake up. I really enjoyed this look into your life.☺️