Day in the Life of a Full-time Work-from-Home Mama

I’ve done a few Day in the Life posts before, but haven’t done one this year I don’t think. Figure I am due! And, I don’t know about you, but these are my absolute favorite posts to read. Just nosy I guess! 🙂

A little background: I have two daughters (ages 4 and 2), another little girl due in October, a full-time job, and I freelance/blog on the side (minimally).

My FT job is flexible and most of it is done from home. I AM FOREVER THANKFUL FOR THIS!! I do stick to a 9-5 schedule for the most part, but there are definitely times where I’ll work on a Sunday afternoon to get my week started on the right foot, and then maybe end a few of my weekdays around 4:00 pm when my 2-year-old wakes up from her nap.

The girls go to daycare five days per week part-time. Daycare has been life-changing for not only my work schedule, but for me as a mom. I LOVE being a mom, don’t get me wrong, but I also love having something that’s just for me. This transition has been so good for my girls and it’s made me a better mom. Even if I didn’t work FT, I would keep my girls in their part-time daycare schedule.

Ok, let’s get started…

6:00 am

Rise and shine! We are an early family over here. Our girls go to bed early and we go to bed early, so naturally we are all up early. Typically, Cami is up first between 5:30-6:15. John’s up next, then Maisie, then me. We’re all usually up within 30 minutes of each other!

I use the morning hours to have coffee, check my work emails, schedule posts on Pinterest, and read blogs. Our mornings are slow and we are rarely in a rush, which I love.

Last year, I took Crystal Paine’s Make Over Your Mornings course. If you’re struggling with getting up or being productive in the morning hours, I highly recommend this course. She has some great ideas that actually make it so you look forward to waking up early. I know, right?!

8:00 am

I leave with the girls to drop them off at daycare right at 8:00 am. On Monday’s and Friday’s, I come right back home to work from home. Ahhhh. Nothing better than a quiet house! And I’m MUCH more productive at home than in the office. I’m a talker, so between that and meetings, very little work gets done haha. I go into the office Tues-Thurs for a half day.

1:00 pm

Pick up the girls! This is by far one of the best parts of my day 🙂 I love seeing them after school, and by this point I’ve really started to miss them and am happy to be able to spend the afternoon with them. We get back home by 1:30.

1:30 pm

Work time for me, play time and snacks for the girls. For the most part, they play together really well until I put Maisie down for her nap around 2:30. If they start crying and fighting, I’ll put Maisie down for a nap earlier. While Maisie naps, Cami watches TV. Judge all you want, but it’s the only way I can get work done! She usually will color or do puzzles while watching her shows. She’s truly a dream child. So well behaved while mama works!

Maisie usually naps until 4 or 5, so I’m able to work a full day 9-5 schedule even with them both at home for half the day. She doesn’t ALWAYS nap, and those days feel much longer but I am still able to work as long as her and Cami are playing nice 🙂

John is normally home by 5, as well, so I try to make sure my day is wrapped up by then. Sometimes I’ll start dinner beforehand or do some cleaning, but it really just depends on what’s going on with my FT job.

5:00 pm

There is nothing I love more than when my family is all together. Evenings can be hectic as anyone with little kids knows, but I love them! We eat dinner as a family or go out to eat and will usually run an errand. And by “errand” I mean going to a bakery, getting a treat at the grocery store, grabbing a coffee, going to the bookstore, etc. All fun stuff!

We eat out probably twice a week – usually on Friday and/or Saturday. We’re always home by 7 at the latest so we can get the girls to bed. They go to bed anywhere between 6:45 and 7:30. Cami goes to sleep immediately, and Maisie will usually sing in her crib for a bit before falling asleep.

7:30 pm

This is John and I’s separate time, haha. We pull out our laptops and either catch up on work or goof off online. This is when I will blog! I don’t blog much at all anymore, but I do still really really love it! I never see myself not blogging, and one day I hope I can contribute much more time to it.

As a disclaimer, I’m releasing my income report next week and it’s a big one. In fact, it’s my biggest ever – including when I strictly freelanced/blogged and didn’t have a FT job. If I had to guess, I would say I blogged for five hours in July and freelanced for another five. That’s 10 hours of my entire month for a REALLY GOOD income!

If you want to start making money from home – whether in addition to your FT job or to replace your FT job – I highly highly recommend starting a blog. In fact, it’s no longer even an option; it’s a MUST. You have to have a place to showcase your writing, and even more so than that, blogs can be extremely profitable. It takes time (you can see my post on how much time it takes to make money blogging here) to build it up, but it is absolutely worth it. Stick with this hobby for a good year or two, and I can guarantee you’ll be generating an income from it!

8:30 pm

We are usually upstairs ready to read, chat and watch our shows between 8 and 8:30. Like I said, we’re early birds!! This is another favorite part of my day! John and I are both busy during the day, so other than a few texts or a quick phone call, we don’t chat much. Then, we have the girls in the evening so it’s hard to focus and have an actual conversation. This is the time for us to do just that, and I look forward to it every evening!

We’ve been watching Bloodline on Netflix, and I’m obsessed. Though, my all-time favorite show is still Blue Bloods and I can’t wait for the new season to come out! Usually, we’ll watch one or two episodes of a show and go to sleep. I do usually fall asleep by 9:30 though haha. Pregnancy exhaustion is real!

And that’s a day in the life!

If you’re wondering where cleaning and cooking fit in, they somehow do, haha. I typically do some cleaning when I work from home on Monday’s and Friday’s, and on Saturday mornings John and I will tackle some chores for an hour or so. More importantly, I’m big on “cleaning as I go,” which I really believe keeps our house relatively clean and orderly at all times. Dishes are never piled up, there’s always clean laundry, and heck even the bathrooms stay clean because of my system. Little things here and there that take a minute or two really do add up!