Salon Post: What's your day like?

[jenett]

Welcome back to the renewed Salon posts.

Topic of the day (As always, feel free to divert to other interesting questions!)
I just started working a different shift at work. (basically I am our evening library person until 11pm this semester: I have a 5.5 hour day, 3 9 hour days, and an 8 hour day.) It's making me think a lot about how we plan days, and fit things into them.

So. What's your day like? Are you a morning person? A night owl? Something in the middle? Naturally a night owl, but you have to get up for a morning job. (That's me, once upon a time! I am a natural night owl, but used to have to be at work at 7:30am at my previous job. Or sometimes 7.)

And within that day, what's your routine? I have never been a breakfast person (and combined with that, my thyroid meds mean I can't eat for 45 minutes after taking them, and eating and *then* going to work is - well, too complicated for a morning.) So I'm currently liking the new schedule, where I get up, take my meds, and then do something for lunch as my first meal. (And also heat soup and put things together to bring to work for dinner, and then have something when I get home.) It seems to be working out so far.

And what's your evening routine? How do you wind down at the end? What things do you enjoy? (Mine often involves the computer and some knitting.)

Current things
As I mentioned in a locked post, I am currently finishing reading all the Phryne Fisher mysteries so I can watch the TV series (Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and in the meantime am watching Warehouse 13. I have not had a lot of brain for complicated reading, which is not so good (because I have a lot on my TBR pile)

To go with the watching, I have been knitting the Celestarium shawl, designed by Audry Nicklin, which maps the stars of the northern hemisphere onto a circular shawl. It's involved a bunch of new skills (and I didn't do anything with it for most of November and December) but I'm trying to get it done for something in mid-March. She has one for the southern hemisphere stars, too, and I'm doing four colours of beads for the star magnitudes, which is a little fiddly but very interesting.

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Comments

[mrissa]

I am a morning person. Such a morning person. Among other things, this gets me alone time in most days despite the fact that I live with three other mammals: the dog gets up at 9, Mark gets up at 11, and Timprov gets up at *, where * is determined by his sleep disorders. So most days I get alone time from somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 to 9, and a few days out of the month I get Timprov time in there.

I am a breakfast person also. When people advise that you should determine how much sleep you need by sleeping until you wake naturally without an alarm, I laugh and laugh, because my alarm is my stomach. Even when I am struggling with nausea issues, breakfast is the meal I get for "free." (The down side of this is that if I try to get up and not eat breakfast right away, I fall over. Also, I get nauseated. So: BREAKFAST.) So I get up, get myself breakfast--usually barley porridge with fruit and nuts, but right now yogurt and granola so I can get some probiotics into me first thing. I read email and intarwebs. I work a bit. At 9 I brush the teeth, take my meds, wake the dog, let the dog out, feed the dog, have "couch time" with the dog (I read, dog "reads" over my shoulder or curls up on my feet depending on how cold it is). If I have something going on at noonish, I get my workout in at 9:30. If not, I work some more. The afternoon and evening are far less structured, but the morning is very very much the same always.

[jenett]

I find that totally fascinating, because I am - if I have to get up early, there is a routine to my morning, but otherwise, not so much. (The cat, also more variable than your exceedingly excellent dog.)

I also find the hunger the first thing in the morning thing fascinating, because I basically *never* have been. I will eat breakfast if I need to, and if I'm somewhere with actual serious food for breakfast (B&B, f'instance), I'll cheerfully eat. But I pretty much have to tell myself to eat something moderate, several times, before it will work, and always have.

[calissa]

This sounds very similar to me! I am also a morning person whose stomach demands breakfast and gets her alone time from somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 until 8 (sometimes 9 on certain days). I love the peacefulness of it.

[untonuggan]

Somehow my day kind of rotates? Idek. Like, I was very happy a few months ago waking up without an alarm at 6:30 in the morning. Whereas a few years ago that would have been inconceivable. And yet and yet the past month or so my brain was like, "Oh, we can read novels again," and so suddenly my sleep cycle got shot to pieces because must find out what happens at the end of the book and oh suddenly it's 4 am. I have kind of got my sleep cycle back in order, except now we are fostering a dog and she has decided my bed is the comfiest, which means getting used to sleeping with a furry bed hog, and her waking up at 7 am to go out for a walk and fitting that into my routine of taking meds and checking dreamwidth.

[jenett]

This is part of why I do not have a dog :)

I do have a cat, who decides she will come take over the space between my body pillow and the back of my neck on a regular basis, but that is at least fairly compact.

One of the things I'm really liking about the new schedule is that if I don't make it to bed when I really should, I can sleep later to make up.

[untonuggan]

Keep in mind that foster dog is WAY easier to take care of than when we had an ailing 16 year old dog -- then morning routine involved wake up dog, take outside, change dog's diaper (he was incontinent at that point), give dog breakfast, take dog IMMEDIATELY outside again so he did not have an accident in the house, change diaper, give dog about 8 different meds and towards the end we had to trick him to take them and he had learned most of the tricks...and that was just first thing in the morning. /o\ He was totally worth it though.

I would not be able to have a dog, I think, if I lived alone. Too much work on my bad days to keep up with all of it. However, since I live with three other adults, I'm lucky enough to be able to spread it around.

[jenett]

It's partly the schedule thing, with the cat. Despite being a creature of habit, there's quite a lot of variation between my work days and my non work days (and also a lot of days when moving more than I absolutely have to is way too much.)

Also, my dog allergies are way worse than my cat allegies. (Though Mrissa's excellent dog does not set them off much.)

The cat, mind, has a "You are going out, I must writhe uncontrollably on the cat furniture to distract you for five minutes" routine going on.

[cheyinka]

Left to myself, I would stay up until two or three o'clock in the morning and then sleep until noon. Before my son was born, I would get up when my husband got up for work (because it made him understandably cranky if I stayed in bed) and then sometimes go back to sleep if I'd stayed up particularly late the night before. I've discovered I'm actually pretty good at accomplishing little tasks if I wake up naturally before 6am and get right up and do them, but I pretty much never wake up on my own that early, and if I wake up to an alarm I'm groggy and cranky.

Then my son was born, and he wanted to nurse about every two hours around the clock... and then every three... and then every four during the day and every two at night... right up until I weaned him this December. Alas, we still cosleep, and some time between 6am and 8am the monsterling awakens and immediately demands that I put my glasses on ("GLAAAH!"), pick my phone up from the bookshelf I use as a nightstand ("PHOOOOOONE!"), and then get him breakfast ("EAT! EAT!"). So I get up early... but I don't get any little-task-accomplishing time, because I am providing cereal, taking morning medication, and then Toddler Breakfast Hour is Mommy Skyrim Hour since I'm groggy and can't eat for at least half an hour, and I can't stay up late to play games because I will be getting up at some point between 6am and 8am anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

I am not a morning person, but I am also not a night owl. I'm really at my best from mid-morning, when I've been up for two or three hours, until late afternoon. By the time I get home from work, I'm usually pretty tired and mentally fatigued.

I am trying very hard to get myself to yoga by 7:30 a.m. on M/W/F, so those days I set my alarm for 5:45 a.m. (That's an easier wake-up call on some days than on others.) It gives me essentially an hour (since from 5:45 to 6:00 I'm usually rousing myself and having a quick conversation with my husband -- who works late most nights so sleeps until 9:00 or 10:00) to shower and get ready. I often manage to squeeze dishes and a load of laundry into that time. By 7:00 to 7:10 (depending on how much snow I need to dig out!) I am outside starting the car. Then I'm at the studio in plenty of time for class. It's an hour class, so I have time to change and drive the 20-30 minutes to work to get myself there by 9:15.

(I would love to start taking a 6:30 a.m. class on Tuesdays. But so far getting up and teeth brushed that early has been a no-go.)

On non-yoga mornings, I try to be at work around 8:30, and I let myself sleep until 6:30, or sometimes even 7:00. On yoga mornings I don't eat until after -- usually some sort of a bar type thing and tea which I make once at work. On non-yoga days it's 50/50 whether I eat and/or make tea before I leave the house. (Depends on how late I sleep and how many chores I try to squeeze in.)

Work is from whenever I get there to between 5:00 and 6:00 depending on what I have to do and whether it's a night with my husband or not. (He's home with me Monday, Tuesday and Sunday nights.) I leave earlier if he's home and make more of an effort to cook (or we go out). Nights by myself I'll either go home and have an insta-dinner, or go to an evening yoga class. Then it's reading or Hulu+/Netflix until bed, which I like to get into no later than 10:00, with between 9:00 and 9:30 being preferred. Sometimes there is laundry and dishes, or other light household chores in there too-- but often not.

Lunch on the week days is eaten in our school cafeteria with co-workers, although if I'm really busy I grab and go and eat at my desk.

Weekends are pretty lazy. My husband and I spend Saturday together until he goes to work, and then I head to yoga and then home for an evening of chores and reading/TV. Sometimes I go to my sister's after yoga to have dinner and play with children. Saturdays are when I tend to clean bathrooms, floors, etc.

Sundays I sometimes get up for 8:30 hot yoga, but also sometimes have lazy mornings with my husband wherein we catch up on shows we watch together. Often we are in pajamas until noon. In the afternoons we try to go visit my niece and nephew and have a family dinner. During good weather, our Saturday and Sundays are likely to include a walk, a hike, or a trip to the beach. We also often go out on Sunday afternoon for a beer at a local brewery or for lunch.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

That anonymous is me...

[kakiphony]

Stupid dreamwidth signed me out!

[jenett]

Ok, here's a related question: What's a 'good day' for you, in terms of number of things you get done? (I'm curious both in terms of work day, and in terms of at home time.)

I am having a moment of realising why people think I am sometimes absurdly productive.

At work, I consider it a good day if I manage 2-3 specific tasks (fixing something that takes more than a couple of minutes, writing a complex instructional blog post, setting up a new computer image, any meeting more than 30 minutes, etc.) in a day, plus all the general 'helping people what need help in the moment' that my day involves.

At home, I consider it a bad day if I manage less than 2-3 complex tasks (extended knitting, extended writing, extended indexing, etc.) though I cut myself a lot of slack on nights when Alternity is busy (that counts as a Thing) or when a friend needs an extended conversation for some reason.

(Which probably explains both why I stayed up to do two rounds of knitting last night - each round is now taking me about 45 minutes - and that I am not doing as much reading of books as I used to.)

[untonuggan]

Body/mind combo usually lets me do one complex task per day. I get to pick. If I am in a spate of lots of doctors' appointments, then those are the things I "accomplish." Then again, I may knit while in the waiting room or read while in the waiting room or something like that. But basically -- one task of sustained exertion per day, on average. Otherwise I pay in pain, or mental health woez, etc.

[jenett]

What's weird is - this is not as productive as I remember myself being? (I suspect you can comiserate, from things you've said in the past). I struggle a lot with productive at work vs. productive at home, and I am currently being really really lousy about managing household tasks (because they count as a Complex Thing, and yet I don't want to spend a Complex Thing token on them, as it were.)

Also, the new work schedule, while being good in some ways, is exertion enough (I'm walking about 20 minutes extra a day I work now) that I'm being very cautious about adding exertion before I go to work, because I need to make sure I have enough left for closing the library. (Which involves walking somewhere between half a mile and a mile in the last half hour we're open, depending on how many floors I can shut things down on the first time.)

[sanacrow]

I try for 3-4 significant things a day minimum. I don't always make it, and I roll my lists over from day to day, so I usually feel like I'm always behind.

Robin scolds me regularly for my lists, which tend to be epic.

[sashajwolf]

At work, 1-2 major tasks (things that take >1 hr or require serious brain) plus the small routine things like keeping on top of my inbox and other recurring stuff.

At home, if it's a weekday, just keeping up with the routines. If it's a weekend, then routines plus 1 major task in the morning and 1 in the afternoon.

[cadenzamuse]

Productivity-wise, a "good day" is getting done an appropriate amount of job-searching (the time equivalent of finding and applying for two jobs, so about 4 hours), plus doing twenty minutes of house cleaning, plus 2-3 other "medium-sized things"--which is an odd assortment of "go to board game night for three hours," "go for a run for 20 minutes," "make 3-4 phone calls," "go to a 1 hour meeting"--my estimate was things that take a half-hour of time, but I think if it's a "fun/social" thing, the time goes faster so a 2-3 hour thing still only feels "medium-sized."

[sanacrow]

We're in a state of flux at the moment. The new semester just started, but I don't have any lectures on campus this time - just some lab time that doesn't have to be done on a specific schedule so long as deadlines are met, some meetings/events (my scholarship requirements), and my semester project which adds on a few of both of those. Fen has a class at noon and an art lab that runs to 5:30p on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and since he can't drive, I'm trying to set up most of my "variable" campus time around when I have to be there for transportation services. So far, that's definitely when I'll be doing my time in the counseling department. It looks like I'll have to go in some Wednesdays to cover everything, but I'm still working on minimizing that.

We only have one car (and there is no functional public transportation on this side of the county), so juggling getting Robin to interviews and work on top of school has been rather interesting. The schedule she had for her temp gig worked really well for all of us, but the new job is more challenging to figure out - her starting schedule is 3-11:30p. Tuesdays and Thursdays will probably be us dropping Fen off at noon, either hanging on campus or finding a cheap coffee for an hour or so together, me taking her to work, then coming back to campus to work until counseling closes. I'll take Fen home and deal with house stuff until it's time to go get the Honey again. I have to remember not to starting any school stuff in that space - I tend to get really lost in most of this stuff, to the point where the phone alarm doesn't always get heard... and missing picking up Honey on time would be BAD.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday Robin will be driving herself and are buckle-down school days for me. Unless I'm pushing to make an appointment, when I get up is usually determined by my current medical issues, and which drugs I had to take last night. Most often I'm up between 8 and 10, but it could be as early as 4 or as late as noon. I take my thyroid meds when I first wake up, and it takes me long enough to stretch out and get mobile that I can usually fix breakfast as soon as I'm actually up. I have to eat breakfast no matter how I feel about it, and some sort of bread (bagel, toast), some sort of milk protein (cottage cheese, Greek yogurt) and fruit or veggie is the most common combo. I generally check my class boards while I eat, then work on writing, research or assignments until lunch. Lunch is often leftovers or a sandwich with soup or pasta, and almost always had with a TV show episode or shorter documentary that looks interesting. After lunch is assigned reading or more assignments/writing, depending on the work load. If I'm having a hard week, I'll often fall asleep after lunch, whether I want to or not. (It's one of the reasons I'm glad I do most of my reading on the iPad mini - it's a lot less painful to get hit in the face with when you doze off than the full-size tree-books are!!)

When Honey's home, we usually work on dinner together, and often will watch a show or Rachel Maddow while we eat. (We don't have a kitchen/dinner table right now, so end up eating in the living room in front of the TV.) When Honey's not home, I'll watch something while I eat, and either work on a personal project or read (depending on available brain) after.

Our bedtime routine is usually to get ready and climb in, and then toast on the heating pads while we talk, fiddle with stuff on our devices and share nifty stuff from tumblr or whereever for an hour or so. And pet the cats. They don't let us forget that. Donal usually sits on one of us until we tuck in, and BC cuddles between us. And we get amused, because once we're settled, Donal (my cat) usually sleeps on the far side next to Robin, and BC (Robin's cat) usually sleeps against my legs.

[silveradept]

Standard day is as follows:

Alarm goes off at 6:30am, no exceptions. Because...
...dogs must be given medicine and run outside before feeding (before 7am), no exceptions. Because...
...animals (2 dogs, 3 cats) must be fed about the same time each day (preferably before 7:30), no exceptions. Because...
...diabetic dog must receive insulin in about the same time window each day (about 7:30-7:40), no exceptions.

While this is happening, I'm usually catching up on various politics podcasts, occasionally This American Life.

After feeding, water bowls must be changed, and food bowls and prep implements be cleaned. Then comes shower.

After shower, intent is toothbrushing, grooming, breakfast. Breakfast often skipped or taken on road because time needed for animal affairs is variable.

Drive to work - usually finishing up podcasts. Occasionally talking to Significant Other to give details for daily chart tracking dog health, eating times, and the like. Usually last moment of "me time" for that day.

Work! Which involves programming, like story times, collection maintenance (mostly weeding), answering telephones, occasionally perusing professional publications, and Help Desk time (answering questions, recommending books, and helping people get library cards, manage fines, print things, deal with technology, enforcing policy, printing guest Internet use slips, and much, much more). Help Desk shifts are placed so as to be inconvenient to projects requiring long uninterrupted time blocks (like weeding). Lunch is spent browsing websites on tablet and texting with Significant Other on phone.

If day != closing shift day or music rehearsal after work day, then drive home, while talking to Significant Other on telephone about work day and their day. Then, give dogs medicine (no exceptions), feed dogs (no exceptions), give insulin (no exceptions), and then television and attempted relaxation with Significant Other. TV time is considered together time, so almost no exceptions to that, and relaxation has a high failure rate, because chores/favors/help requests from Significant Other are normal. Somewhere in TV time, food for humans is made (often eliciting help requests from Significant Other to try and make food happen relatively on time) and dogs are taken out for bathroom usage (at least twice.). Of note at this point: Significant Other suffers from physical disability that makes standing for long periods of time difficult and painful.

Around 11:30, before or after final dog run outside, scoop out cat litter boxes. Then attempt bedtime - success or failure depends on any outstanding favors requested by Significant Other or necessary conversation topics not covered until this time. Normal starting-to-sleep time - 12 midnight-1am.

Alarm goes off at 6:30am, no exceptions. Repeat as necessary.

For weekends, substitute chores/favors/help in place of work, starting at point where Significant Other has breakfasted, and pausing at meal times, stopping at bedtime.

Those are typical days, anyway.

[crystalpyramid]

I'm naturally a morning person — not necessarily awake at any particular time, although my body clock seems to set itself pretty easily and I'll usually wake up on a day off within an hour or so of when I'd wake up on a work day — but I'm much more alert and productive in the mornings, and pretty useless in the evenings unless I'm really wired from stress or caffeine.

My morning routine is generally to wake up, eat cereal, get dressed and get ready, then catch a train to work. If I catch the early train I've got an hour to work on stuff before any of my students get in — unless I've been skimping on sleep, that's usually my most productive time of the day. I'm usually either helping students or doing frantic prep from 7 till 8, actually teaching from 8 till 2:30, continuing to be a supervisory presence (but usually not getting much done) from 2:30 till 4:30, and catching the train home around 5. Post-work dinner usually involves scrounging or making food from the fridge, rather than having an actual sit-down dinner, which sort of makes me sad, but nobody else in my household (fiancé, sister) is ever on the same food/sleep schedule as me, because neither of them is a morning person at all, and they're generally been up a lot less time than I have so they aren't hungry yet.

Ideally I would do work in the evening, but unless there's a major deadline or I've just given a test or something, I usually just veg out in front of a computer for most of the evening. Right now I'm watching Jeopardy because one of my college friends is on it, but I think this is the first time I've turned on the TV to watch actual television in several years. (Not counting yesterday, when he was on it the first time.)

Weekends are different and I'm never quite sure what to do with them. I'm trying to go running weekend mornings, but "morning" isn't always fast getting started on weekends. Social stuff happens on weekends. I try to go to church on Sundays, but it's been failing lately. I did a million things on Saturday and nothing this past Sunday and it felt completely justified.

[zhelana]

I don't sleep nights. I usually go to bed around 3 am but sometimes as late as 6am. Then, I sleep until 1:45 when I get up and get ready for work. I eat a bagel somewhere in this 30 minute time frame before I leave for work at 2:15. I work until 6 or so, and then things get weird.
Monday: I come home, do some stuff on coursera, hang out with my husband, eat dinner, and play on the internet
Tuesday: I go to rapier practice, and then eat dinner
Wednesday: Every other week I have dinner with my mother, and every other week I go to the SCA meeting. Then I have dinner out with the SCA people.
Thursday: Every other week I have dinner with my mother, and every other week I play trivia at a pub with people from my temple.
Friday: Every other week I swim with my friend Donna, and every other week I go to Shabbat services. I often forget to eat.
Then, I come home, play on the internet, watch Doctor Who, and generally screw around until 3am.

[sashajwolf]

I have an insomnia issue that is almost certainly Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, so my natural pattern is to go to sleep around 2-3 am and wake around 9-10, but work and family demands are such that I actually have to go to bed around 11 pm and wake around 6-7 am. This means I feel permanently jetlagged.

A typical weekday for me goes something like this:

Wake up at 6.15, make tea, feed cats and budgie, do general getting-ready-for-the-day stuff, do morning devotional, possibly go to chiropractor or meet a friend for breakfast. Otherwise have breakfast at home if time, but often I end up getting something on the way to work and eating at my desk.

Leave for work at 8.30-8.45, get there for 9.30. Work till 5.30-7.30 with an hour or so for lunch, which I usually spend running errands or Internetting.

Get home, check in with family, do laundry, cook, Internet some more, feed and medicate dog, walk dog and brush her teeth, clean up kitchem, feed cats, do general getting-ready-for-bed stuff, do evening devotional, make tea, drink it in bed and read until I fall asleep - hopefully by 11 pm, but often later.

Tuesdays and Fridays are a slight variation on the theme because I work from home, and Wednesday evenings are date nights. Saturdays involve chores and dogwalking rather than job work, and Sundays are for socialising and/or walking without the dog (who has arthritis and therefore can't walk for more than an hour at a time, which is less than I need for fitness). Sunday evenings are ADF IRC chats, which I co-moderate.

[calissa]

I am most definitely a morning person. My alarm goes off at 6:30 (6:15 on Tuesday and Thursdays to allow a bit extra time to get ready for swimming) but I'm usually awake and up before that--especially in the summer (all that extra light!)

Breakfast is first order of business. I boil the kettle before I start eating my homemade muesli so that the water is cool enough for green tea by the time I have finished eating. Afterwards, I make offerings to my deities, do a daily tarot reading and spend half an hour journaling. If it's a swimming day, I get ready and head off for that. If not, I spend an hour catching up on email and doing other desk work. Then another half an hour of meditation, morning tea and walk the dogs. If it is a super hot day (as it has been lately) the dogs get walked earlier. Then it is time to dive into whatever I have lined up for the day.

The evening is much less strict. I usually try and get off the computer by about 8--certainly no later than 8:30 or I have trouble getting to sleep. I'll have a shower and do some stretches for my shoulders. Then I'll make a cup of herbal tea and read a book in bed before switching out the light.

[cadenzamuse]

I am in awe of that shawl--and using different colors of beads for star magnitudes is a really cool idea. And of course it led me down the rabbit hole of Ravelry, looking at shawl patterns that I'd be more likely to make... Although my knitting project queue is two or three deep atm--after I finish the Manos del Uruguay Fair Isle Tam that I'm almost done with, I'm going to modify the Stephen West Dustland Mitts to be handwarmers for my brother while he's coding.

(Aaaaaand, now I spent 45 minutes checking out Ravelry patterns, le sigh.)

[jenett]

I need to put up the massive posts about the epic blanket of doom, too. (I am apparently sort of incapable of non-epic knitting. I don't even know.)

[jazzyjj]

Just came upon these and I love this idea of different topics every week or however often it happens. I will try to answer these as time and knowledge permit. As for my day, it's pretty much spending time on the computer. I work from home most of the time, due to travel limitations. Speaking of those, my limited travel skills are really starting to bug me, but more on that later. When I get up in the morning depends upon my schedule, but I do like to sleep in a lot since I have so much free time. But Mondays are my laundry day, so I have to be up and ready to go downstairs by about 8:00. In addition, one of my kidney meds has to be taken by 9:45 in the morning. At least that's the schedule I've stuck to for years now. It doesn't have to be taken with food necessarily. For breakfast I like a lot of things. I generally have cereal and fruit, but I also have a big sweet tooth.





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