When people ask me what I do for a living, it still feels funny to say “I’m a blogger.” In this day and age, people often feel defined by their career, so to say something that sounds so random and misunderstood (to most people) can be awkward. The follow up questions are typically: What does that mean exactly? What do you blog about? How many followers do you have? What do you do all day?
I think the most mysterious question is the latter, and I myself was baffled by how bloggers filled their days, until I started doing it full time myself. I thought it would be a lot of lunch meetings and manicures, followed by dinners and parties. That’s probably the case for some gals, but so far from my reality!
There are definitely days or nights where I’ll get to attend a fun event in the city or go to a party with other bloggers, but since I live so far away, I rarely go to them anymore.
I thought that the easiest way to do this would be to share what a typical day looks like for me. I hope this gives you some insight into the bizarre world of bloggers! Feel free to ask questions if I missed anything.
A Typical Day for me
Every day can vary pretty drastically, but this is what my normal days look like.
7:00am I wake up and say three things that I’m grateful for. It’s always the first thing that I do in the morning, and such an important part of having a good day for me. Then I check social media from bed. It’s an awful habit that I am trying desperately to break, but might never do. After a few (or many) minutes of that, I let the dog out and start my 20 minutes of oil pulling. I’m going on week three right now and still loving it. During that 20 minutes, I always try to get my bed made, wash, tone, and moisturize my face, change out of PJs (into yoga pants TBH), feed the dog, and put on hot water for tea.
7:30am Drink tea and make breakfast. I always wake up hungry so breakfast is one of the first activities of my day, everyday. My go-tos are gluten free toast with ghee, peanut butter and chia seeds, a green smoothie, or scrambled eggs with avocado and hot sauce. If I don’t eat protein in the morning, I end up being hungry all day long.
7:45am I always eat my breakfast at my desk in front of the computer. Another awful habit, but I like to get moving as soon as possible in the morning since it’s when I’m most productive. One of the best parts about working for myself is being able to choose my hours. Starting before 9am might seem awful for some people, but I’d rather start early and take an hour or two off in the middle of the day.
8:30am After answering emails, responding to reader comments and DMs, catching up on my favorite blogs, and scheduling social media for the day, Boots and I go for our morning walk. Some days we do a full hour of hiking in the woods, and other days we meet a friend for a walk around the block. Either way, he gets antsy if I don’t exercise him by 10:00am so I like to get it out of the way.
One day a week, we have a dog walker who takes him to the woods with his doggy buddies. On that day, I workout with Madison during this time.
9:30am Back to business. This is the chunk of time where I get the most work done. For the next 2.5-3 hours I write the next day’s blog post, plan for and set up photo shoots if I have one that day, and look at my editorial calendar to plan ahead. If I have a collage going up that week, I’ll spend at least an hour creating that (they can take forever). It’s also a time where I email back and forth with my manager about any upcoming campaigns, and work on those.
I manage a lot of my husband’s business with him… Everything from accounting to marketing to events. So I often spend an hour or so during this time working on stuff for Countdown.
12:00pm For lunch, I try to eat leftovers from the night before or make a big salad, but sometimes I’m lazy and go for carrots and hummus with an apple and almond butter for dessert. I’m only human!
During lunch, I try to step away from my computer, but that doesn’t always happen. When I do, I’ll either eat in front of the TV, watching an episode of whatever is recorded on my DVR, and when it’s nice I’ll grab my book and eat outside to soak up some sun. Sometimes I’ll have lunch with a friend, and will take a little more time off so that I can get there and back without having to rush.
1:00pm This is when I typically schedule calls, meetings, photo shoots, sand appointments.
Calls can be anything from talking to my designer about updates we’re making to the site, to catching up with my accountant about this quarter’s taxes, to chatting with a brand about a potential partnership, to connecting with other bloggers about best practices on Instagram.
Meetings might be with a PR firm, my manager, a brand, or another blogger
Appointments refer to personal tasks like doctor’s appointment, hair cuts, teeth cleanings, manicures, or even runs to the grocery store.
4:00pm I come back to my desk to answer more emails, finalize upcoming posts, edit photos, work on the week’s newsletter, answer messages on social, and schedule social media for the next day (if I’m on top of my game).
6:00pm Normally, I like to stop working at 6pm so I can have some time to relax, workout, do some yoga, or just enjoy some calming alone time before Anel gets home.
7:00pm Start cooking dinner. I cook on most week nights, and try to make dishes that take no more than 30-40 minutes.
7:30pm Dinner with Anel. We have a strict no phone policy, and catch up on our days.
8:00pm When it’s nice out, we have a “family walk” at night with the dog. It’s nice to walk off dinner and have even more time together without phones or TV.
8:30pm We usually watching a show (currently loving Handmaid’s Tale) together to start winding down.
9:30pm At this point I get up to shower and get ready for bed while Anel watches sports and answers emails for work. I try to get in at least 20 minutes of reading (on a book, not a Kindle bc I’m old school like that) before bed. Getting out of my head and into a story with no screen time dramatically helps my sleep.
10:30pm Lights out! He wakes up at 6:00am and I need a lot of sleep, so we try to be in bed with the lights off by 10:30 every night. It’s not always realistic, but most of the time we hit our goal.
