What is my schedule like as a full-time mom & part-time writer?

A detailed "Day in the Life" from last Wednesday.

Back when the baby and mother were both quite new. She is now nearly one, and I am nearly 25! Normally, I would love to show off her cute face to you all, but I don’t want her picture on the Internet in this new era of deep fakes and AI.

An Ordinary Wednesday in January

7:15

I awake blearily to the smell of coffee and the sizzle of eggs. My husband Jadon has been up with the baby for about thirty minutes, and he is singing a silly song as he flips eggs with one arm and holds her in the other. I nurse baby while I eat breakfast. I have nursed her in the bathtub, lying on the bed, typing emails, and awkwardly walking across the room to grab my phone. If you’re an impatient sort of mom, you learn to multitask. Jadon and I linger at the table for a while, drinking our coffee and listening to Nicky Gumbel’s “Bible in One Year” devotional on audio. The baby crawls around beneath the table, testing her agility by climbing over the crossbars on the chair legs.

8

I sit on our living room floor and do a stretching routine because my hamstrings are sore. The baby thinks my yelps of pain are hilarious and she crawls on top of me as I lean and bend.

Then, she and I get ready for the day. I dress her in a yellow shirt with ruffles at the shoulders and a pattern of small, white flowers. I throw on the mom uniform: athletic leggings and a baggy shirt.

9

Jadon leaves for school, and I nurse the baby again while reading “The Church” by Frederick Buechner. Normally, we would walk Jadon to the bus stop, but the timing doesn’t work out today. Soon, I’m lying on the floor beside the baby’s floor bed, patting her to sleep for her nap.

I tiptoe out of the room, brew a pot of green tea, and email an editor to ask for a new assignment. I sit in my couch corner by the bookshelf and brainstorm a pitch to Business Insider about wealth inequality and working as a maid in the Yellowstone Club.

11

The baby wakes up and we drive off to meet a friend for a baby play date, lunch, and first birthday planning (our babies were born one day apart).

3

When the baby and I get home, I try with zero success to put her to sleep. She is too keyed up from socializing. So I nurse her again while scrolling on my phone (a habit that usually pops up when I’m tired). 

With the baby active, I know everything I try to get done will take about twice as long as usual. I repeat to myself that life isn’t about productivity until I go into a sort of trance. With this mindset, I clean the kitchen as the baby bangs the cupboard doors and put away the folded laundry that’s been sitting on the futon couch for two days—and still feel bad I didn’t get more done. While working, I listen to an episode of Young Heretics, which never has the cotton-candy appeal of more heavily produced podcasts, but which I can rely on to consistently deliver a gold nugget of insight that sticks in my mind for days.

Then, I lie on the floor and let baby crawl over me like I’m an obstacle course. We sing some songs and she claps. While I zone out from exhaustion, she plays drums on my bare belly and screams with joy.

5

I nurse the baby again. Jadon gets home (praise the Lord!) and I make dinner in peace—spaghetti pesto carbonara with chicken and raw carrot salad (shockingly delicious).

After dinner, while Jadon cleans the house, I draw a bath for the baby. I love giving her baths. She has so much fun and is absolutely adorable playing with her rubber ducky and little clownfish and sea turtle. She holds them up to me one by one, beaming. Then, it’s into her pj’s and time for board books with Dad. I nurse her again, sing her a lullaby and set her in bed. She is exhausted because of her skipped nap and drops off immediately.

7:30

Jadon goes upstairs to do homework, and I do an active recovery workout on YouTube with Juice and Toya.

Then, I polish the second round of edits on a short story that received some tough constructive criticism from an editor. Well, actually, when I read the criticism again a day or two after he sent it, it wasn’t harsh at all. It just felt that way initially. Now, I’ve cooled off enough to consider his words objectively.

9

Jadon and I hang out in our now quiet house.

11

Zzzzzzz.

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Whew, I’m exhausted just looking at these notes.

As I type them up three days later, I’m sitting on the couch in my pjs during the baby’s first nap, determined that today, Friday, will be extremely chill by comparison. Can I manage to do absolutely nothing? Well, no. I have a baby to take care of. But I can manage to do the bare minimum. Unless I feel like it, I’m not socializing at all. Maybe I’ll call my mom. She’s comfortable company, doesn’t sap my energy at all, and I like talking to her about nearly any topic.

On the Wednesday recorded in this post, I only did about two hours total of writing work. If my baby naps like normal and I’m not socializing with Jadon or my friends, I sometimes get up to four. I like both kinds of days. Socializing helps prevent the depressive breakdowns that happen when I process too much, while alone time with a pen and paper helps prevent the anxious breakdowns that happen when I process too little. It’s all about the balance, especially in January when the skies are cold and gray.

You may have noticed the pattern of constant interruption and activity in this schedule. That is normal at this stage, and I think it’s probably the most challenging aspect of life with children. So much energy goes into administration that it is sometimes hard to prioritize creation—meaning not only “Art” (posh accent, raised pinky), but simply being present in the moment, noticing the scent of cinnamon or car exhaust in the air, or giving voice to the emotions coursing through my veins.

If I don’t make space for creation, life stagnates. It loses its vivacious unpredictability and turns into a the dull gray of a nine-to-five. But if I do make space for creation, life is always very exciting, even (and maybe especially) if it is hard.

Much has been written about the allure of “flow,” the state in which the mind is totally concentrated on one activity, to the point where the rest of the world ceases to exist. I think that’s basically what I’ve been describing with the word “creation.” But it is hard to come by in most modern occupations, I think, not just childcare. And even if we have the opportunity to enter this state of mind, we are constantly sabotaging our attempts by using every spare moment to check our phones. Perhaps that is why I’ve been able to enter flow most consistently through activities that demand my whole body’s engagement—long-distance running, vocal training, playing the piano, yoga, Pilates. There’s no way I can scroll Instagram while doing any of those things! In the past, I’ve used software like DarkRoom to mimic that immersion in the writing process.

As I mull over my 2024 focus word of “Systems,” something that keeps coming up is the vision of the home as a place designed to protect what is most precious. In the temporal dimension, I think the most precious thing is the present. Jotting down last Wednesday’s schedule is perhaps a good first step towards creating a predictable routine, which could minimize mental load / administration and maximize flow / creation, thereby protecting the present moment.

Here’s what I want to hear from you.

I’m curious, do you struggle to enter a state of creation or flow? Do you relate to mental overload in your vocation, whether as a mom or a mechanical engineer? Which activities give you that feeling of joyful unity?

Do you think that our phones are part of the problem?

And have you taken any measures to protect the present in your home? If so, I’d love to hear them.