Every season of life brings its own challenges. And it often feels like every single time, we have to figure out a whole new daily routine and schedule to accommodate the shift. But what if you’re one of those people who craves a set routine and schedule, but find it almost possible to actually make one?

I’ve got you!

I’m at a point in my life that I’ve reached my Dream Day goal: I own my own flexible business that I can work from anywhere. I get to teach at FCS every day. I have plenty of time to spend with my husband and kids.

But it wasn’t always like this. In fact, most of my life, it hasn’t been.

I began The Hustle when I was just 17 years old. And it didn’t stop until 2018. Truly. Over two decades of working somewhere between 60 and 100 hours each and every week. Yes, you read that correctly. 100 hour work weeks mean just over nine hours a day to squeeze in everything ELSE. I worked those much more frequently when I was single and the couple years of marriage pre-children.

I “cut back” to 90 hour work weeks when I had kids. And still, I never stopped hustling. I just changed how and when I hustled. I did more work-from-home jobs. I was already building my Author Services business before my youngest was born, without realizing that’s exactly what I was doing. I’d frequently edit books from the front seat of my car while waiting for Uber calls. Weekend after weekend after weekend.

Until my business was finally bringing in enough money steadily that I could quit the half dozen smaller hustles. I won’t pretend it wasn’t a relief to drop down to a regular old 60 hour work week. But after years of hustling my business, I finally got to a place where I had to stop and evaluate things.

My kids are old enough that they don’t need mommy to hold them anymore. No, now they need mom to watch over them so that they don’t become despicable human beings. And I realized that even though I thoroughly enjoy my business, working so much was taking a toll on my body. I had to slow down or I wouldn’t be around for my grandkids…someday in the far future.

I admit the forced leisure of 2020 helped, but I was already headed that way before lockdown. I had conscientiously been stopping work at 5pm whether or not I was done with a project. I wouldn’t work on Saturdays or Sunday unless is was a true emergency. Drawing those boundaries and sticking with them had become important.

But there was still so much that I needed to accomplish! So enter figuring out how to work smarter, better, more efficiently. And I don’t mean on just one project here, or one process there. No, I needed to figure out how to plan out my days, weeks, and months in such a way that I would always be operating at my optimal level for that moment, day, week.

Which required a lot of soul-searching to figure out where my boundaries were and what was truly important to me. But I finally got to the place that I felt like I’d found a good balance. Now it just takes rigorous guarding of those boundaries.

So what does my typical day look like now that I’ve got a very happy marriage, elementary/junior high kids, a business, several church ministries, and an extended family with many needs? Here you go:

6:00 Golden Hour (morning walk/talk)
7:00 Get myself and my kids ready and out the door
8:00 Begin work. If my current editing/proofing project has to do with audio, I do it during this time. If it does not, then I work on VA tasks for my authors. I follow my theme day routine, which I’ll explain below.
11:30 Teach 4th grade at FCS (This year, at least. They seem to do something different with me every year.)
15:00 (that’s 3pm) Transition to home. Help the kids with any homework they might need help on. Check notes from their teachers, etc.
16:00 Work for another hour. I do the opposite of what I did at 8:00, so either VA work or an editing job that’s NOT audio. This hour gets interrupted frequently, as you can imagine.
17:00 Turn on an audiobook or podcast. Cook dinner. Transition the kids to doing their evening chores.
18:00 Have dinner as a family, then do whatever activity we have that evening. Some evenings are various church ministries that we do together as a family, while others are kept sacred for us staying home and doing something together. Some are spent with extended family.
20:00 (Or whenever whichever church event is over) Get the kids to bed, do my personal housework. Start my bedtime routine (which, really, is just getting the house and me ready for the next day.)
21:00 Transition to quiet time with my husband. We like to spend our evenings beside each other, even if we’re working on different things. I usually read during this time while he catches up on his favorite education YouTubers. They distract me a lot, but in a good way. 😁
22:00 Lights out. If I fall asleep quickly, I might actually get eight hours of sleep!

Pretty soon, we’ll be moving into “summer schedule” where my kids sleep in and I get as much work done as I possibly can before they stir. Then we spend our mornings on “work” (house work, summer school work, special projects that get reserved for the summers), the afternoons having fun adventures or relaxing, and the evenings resting at home. This is the same schedule we keep during school holidays as well.

I am not rigid in this schedule. The only thing on it that really requires that I show up at a particular place and time is school and church events. And that was a very conscious and deliberate choice to structure my life that way. It wasn’t always that way. It usually wasn’t for my entire adult life.

Now, I promised I would tell you about my theme days in my business…

Mondays are Podcast Day. Any task I have associated with any of the podcasts that my authors run are done on this day. Whether that’s emailing guests for interviews, researching, editing, uploading, publishing, etc. If it’s associated with a podcast, it gets done on this day.

Tuesdays are Newsletter Day. Also, emails day. This is where I catch up on various emails (for my authors) whether they be from authors or readers. I prep and schedule out newsletters.

Wednesdays are Administrative Day. It’s also a rotating task day. This usually involves an hour or two to do all administrative tasks for my business including planning and evaluation for the future (which happens monthly). But this day also includes an hour or two for various author tasks. First Wednesday of the month, I book all promos (Some of my authors give me a budget, and then I just make sure there’s at least one promo running on at least one book every single month.) Second Wednesday of the month, I set up giveaways and work on some long-term low-level-priority tasks for a couple of authors. Third Wednesday of the month, I evaluate all long-term ads currently running and see if they need to be tweaked. If any new ads are to be run, I set them up on this day. Fourth Wednesday of the month, I do any website or blog maintenance and updating.

Thursdays are Video & Special Project Day. If I’m recording any videos for anyone, they get done on Thursdays. If any author sends me a special project that’s not part of my current recurring projects, and I wasn’t able to get it completed on the day they sent it to me, then I try to finish it on this day.

Fridays are Publishing Day. Whether that’s uploading books, tweaking descriptions, switching out files, or even just a formatting job, Fridays are for the actual work of publishing a book. Or ten.

But all of those are only for part of my work day. The other part is reserved for whichever editing or proofing job I’ve currently got. Having the diversity of tasks so that I don’t ever really get bored, combined with the fairly predictable work schedule provides me just the right amount of freedom and routine. I’ve applied it not just to my business, but also to my house keeping and other things.

I hope this sneak peek has given you some ideas of how to structure your own schedule in a way that works well for how your brain works. If you’d like to see my full Suggested Daily Schedule with schedules for people in all walks and seasons of life, you can find that here.