A Day In The Life

I just sat down to write this new chapter in the “Are We Relevant Yet?” series and had to laugh a little bit: the topic of the week is “A Day In The Life” and today I am sitting on the terrace of my suite in a hotel in Marbella where I currently am on a press trip (with Emily actually). Quite the departure from my desk in Notting Hill – the palm trees are ever so slightly distracting and I see swans swimming right below me, so this is what my day looks like today… But my days mostly don’t look like that. As a blogger / small business owner I don’t really have a typical day, however I do have a routine of sorts that helps me stay focused and disciplined. It can be quite hard (and sometimes also lonely) to work for yourself, and I think you need to put yourself on some sort of schedule for it to work. But you also need to be able to flip that schedule on its head at a moment’s notice to accommodate unusual activities such as trips, events etc. Overall, a “typical” day for me looks like this:

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7am – Open one eye, switch on phone and check emails (I get a lot of emails from the U.S.), Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.

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8am – Mini generally comes in for a cuddle break before she gets dressed, she crawls in bed with me and we chat for a little bit.

8:30am – I go upstairs and make breakfast, which is usually a cup of English Breakfast tea with soy milk and oatmeal with chia seeds, dates and a banana. After that I shower and get ready…

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9am – I tend to prepare my posts in advance and I only post 2 or 3 times a week, so I generally sit down one day and write them all. Depending on the amount of photo editing, coding and writing I need to do for each post, this takes between 2-5 hours.

12:30pm – Lunch break. I like to go out for lunch so I can get some fresh air, so I just go to Portobello to grab a salad or sandwich and sit down for a coffee in my favourite coffee shop.

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1pm – Back at work… Depending on Mini’s schedule, I will either take meetings in the afternoon until about 4:30pm or go back home and do more work, reply to emails, pack up parcels from my shop or shoot images for projects or clients I have on at the time.

3:20pm – Time to pick up Mini, then I go back to work on whatever I was doing.

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6pm – I write a few more emails, call my agent for a debrief on latest projects and put my mum hat on for the evening!

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8pm – Mini’s bed time… And mine! I like to sit in bed to watch films or read for a couple hours.

10:30pm –😴

So this is what my 9 t0 5 looks like, pretty much… Of course, right now I am on a slightly different schedule as I am away on a press trip, so my days are distorted. When this happens, I simply try to slot my usual writing / photo editing hours into the trip’s itinerary, even if that means I need to miss out on some of the activities. This blog – my business – always needs to be the priority, otherwise you won’t have anything to read with your morning coffee and then YOUR schedule will be disrupted!