Originally on Dev.to

This post was somewhat influenced by Michelle Barker’s post, which in turn was encouraged by Colin Devroe.

Routine is good for me as long as I can keep a straight score, but as soon as something ruptures those habits everything falls into chaos, which is why the last couple of years (and I mean that literally, it must be around 2 years or a little bit less) that I ended up finding a system that works for me and has a decent amount of structure but still is flexible enough to allow interruptions without throwing everything into disarray.

Because of everything I’ve written in the previous paragraph I won’t be using hours but rather chunks of the day to describe what I do daily:

Early morning: I wake up, do my skin care routine, and prepare some quick breakfast (it usually is a banana smoothie with strawberries or blueberries, peanut butter and honey. It can also be eggs, toasts and coffee). Once breakfast is ready I head over to my desk -lately that means the living room table of my apartment- to either read emails or organize the day. If there are bills to pay or I need to settle something, this is the moment where I try to be as productive as possible: concise answers, resolutive approaches.

Mid-morning: Once those early morning tasks are done, I start by prioritizing what part of my work needs to be done with more urgency. Said work can either be bug fixing, feature work or documentation (depends on the client I’m working for at the moment). Some days are harder than others when it comes to having the drive to get to business, which is why I’ve been setting goals as a way to fuel my motivation. So far it’s been working good enough. At this time, if I get hungry this is the moment where I’d grab some cookies, yogurt or an apple.

Middle of the day: Munch munch, crunch crunch. This is where I take a little time to, only lately, prepare a home-cooked meal with my boyfriend and sit and watch a short YouTube video while we have lunch together.

Early afternoon: Where my energy is at its lowest, which I why I use this time to answer Slack messages, set up calls, and check for new emails. I try to keep all activities that don’t require much focus in this timespan so I don’t, for example, code mindlessly.

Late afternoon: Sometimes this means 6pm, other times this means 1am. It all depends on the task I’ve been working on, how much I procrastinated or how complex it is. I been trying to keep it to 7pm at maximum, and that’s mainly because I head to the gym at the end of the day to catch a quick 50-minutes crossfit lesson (or an acting lesson if it is Tuesday) and be back home by 8 or 9pm. Once back home I take a shower, cook something with my boyfriend and our roommate, watch a TV show episode (lately that is Ryan Murphy’s “Pose”, but a couple of weeks ago it was Attack On Titan so we could catch up to the fourth season), and if possible be in bed by midnight. I used to read a decent amount a couple of years ago and I’ve been trying to get back to that but I have to admit I’ve been failing miserably (which is sad because with the whole Twilight Renaissance the internet has seen lately I would very much like to read the entirety of Midnight Sun).

Aaand that is a typical day for me. I obviously switch it up whenever something new comes up, like having to babysit my nephew (I became an uncle like 4 months ago, yay!) or go to a doctor’s appointment, but the overall succession of events looks like the list above.

Looking forward to read your typical days!