Day 2

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Set your timer for 10 minutes. Write down your general day-to-day routine, both during the working week and at the weekend. Be honest with yourself – How much can you delegate? How much can you just... not do? How much time do you actually spend on Facebook? How much time do you spend staring at Netflix?

Weekdays:

  • 5:30 - wake up and swear

  • 5:45 - get back to sleep/toss and turn in existential dread

  • 6:30 - bitterly resent my alarm going off

  • 7:30 (ish) - leave for work

  • 8:30 (ish) - work work work, motherfucking work

  • 4:30 (ish) - drive home

  • 6:00 - get home with the kids

  • 6:10 - 8:00 - an utter shitshow

  • 8:00 - kids’ official bedtime (they don’t know this - they think their bedtime is 7:30. Ha!) 

  • 8:00 - 9:00 - the bit between them going to bed and actually settling the fuck down. Also dinner. 

  • 8:30 - 9:00 on a good day this is when I will write

  • 9:00 - 9:30 on a bad day this is when I will write

  • 10:00 - watch telly/surf my phone until semi-conscious

  • 11:15 (ish) go to bed

    There is literally no part of this that can change. The variable seems to be whether there is just me or two of us dealing with the 6-9 bullshit time. They play us off against each other like tiny Kaiser Soze’s (or some less icky reference if I can think of one)

Saturday:

  • 7:45 - bitterly resent my alarm going off

  • 7:50 - 9:00 - sit in bed drinking coffee, reading the news on my phone and cuddling the kids who are occasionally quite nice. 

  • 9:00 - leg it into the shower

  • 9:20 - leg it into the car (hopefully having dressed first) 

  • 9:45 - drop the kids at drama and luxuriate in the thought of three hours without them. 

  • 10:00 - 12:50 - rest and refresh/shop/drink coffee and go on my phone/do smoochies/read/write  

  • 1:00 pick up kids & get some lunch

  • 2:00 - birthday party/improving activity/sack it all off and let them on screens until they start drooling. I faff about a bit not sure what to do with myself/gardening (weather permitting)

  • 6:00 - get dinner together/argue with big kid about how we can’t have fish and chips every single Saturday

  • 7:00 - watch some family telly (thank the lord for Michael Mcintyre - in my day I made my parents watch Russ Abbott for gods’ sake. Also what the fuck is the masked singer all about?! It’s demented) 

  • 8:30 - some sort of bedtime routine for the kids or stay up a bit later if we are watching a good film. 

  • 9:00 - watch telly/go on my phone or laptop/read a book/

  • 12:00 - roll of the sofa, wipe the dribble from my face and go to bed

Sunday

  • 9:00 - stretch, smile, stay in bed

  • 10:00 - begrudgingly get up in time for second breakfast

  • 11:00 - homework (them)/colouring in (me - it stops me wrapping my hands around their necks)

  • 12:30 - lunch

  • 1:00 - some sort of improving activity

  • 5:30 - make dinner

  • 6:30 - eat dinner

  • 7:00 (ish) Doctor Who 

  • 8:00 baths and bed

  • 9:00 - write/read

  • 9:30 - polite discussion with husband about how he should turn off his computer game so I can watch something delightfully stupid instead

  • 9:45 - gleefully grab the remote and do a small, respectful victory dance

  • 11:30 - go to bed feeling guilty i didn’t go earlier - i have work tomorrow, for gods’ sake