My Kingdom for a Typical Day

Colin Devroe has asked several bloggers what their typical day is. This crystalizes something I have been struggling with off and on for the last half year, anything resembling a typical day is exceedingly difficult. There are a few reasons for this:

• The pandemic means that my kids have been schooling from home for almost a year now. What is this like? It’s like summertime for working parents, messy. Except it’s worse. You don’t just have guilt that your kids are wasting their days. You have to become task master and IT professional, because remote school software is … rough. So that means constant interruptions and trying to keep kids on task. We moved to a new school district in December and the way they’re handling remote schooling seems to work better so I’m hoping this improves.
• Most of the fall was absorbed with house-hunting, purchasing, finding new renters for our previous home, prepping for the move, moving, and unpacking. This has taken any spare moment and more than all my spare energy and attention to make happen.
• A drop in my exercise frequency, which I am finding is essential to maintaining energy and focus.
• My wife works nights as a physician in hospital emergency rooms and urgent care. So our time together varies depending on whether or not she’s working that day.
• It is dark in the Puget Sound in the winters and it feels like 9pm starting at about 5pm and lately the sun hasn’t come up until after 8.

All of that has contributed to the challenge of pursuing a typical day. However, in the past I have had very fruitful periods with typical days. So I thought I’d write a bit about what a typical ideal day is and contrast it with reality. It seems bleak to lay it out like this, but I’m sure it can improve and there are always seasons and interruptions to routines. It just feels particularly heavy at the moment.

Waking Up

Ideal: 6am

Current: Whenever the first kid who needs my help eating breakfast comes in my bedroom and wakes me up. Anytime between 5 and 9am

Devotional/Reading time

Ideal: 6:30-7:30am

Current: Whenever I sit down to work I’ll take 15–20 minutes to do an abbreviated version of this. If my day starts with a meeting, I’ll find a few minutes at lunch.

Exercise, Getting kids ready for school, Showering

Ideal: 7:30–9

Current: Exercise is out the window. Showering and getting kids fed, in front of zooms, set with Grandma from the moment I wake up until I sit down in front of work.

Work

Ideal: 9–12

Current: 9–12

Lunch

Ideal: 12–1, plus a walk

Current: 12–1

Work

Ideal: 1–5

Current: 1–5

Dinner

Ideal: 5–7

Current: 5–7

Clean up, getting kids ready for bed

Ideal: 7–8

Current: 7–9

Personal projects or time with spouse

Ideal: 8–9

Current: 9–12, except instead of personal projects or time with spouse it’s exhausted unpacking, reorganizing a room, paying bills at the last moment because who can remember things anymore, or giving up and watching TV.

Wind down, reading, and going to bed

Ideal: 9–10

Current: 11–12, except forget about winding down or reading most nights, it’s just prayer, pillow, blackness.