My typical day

In my first ever invitation to a blogging chain I've been asked to write about some typical things in my daily life.

I was invited to share my typical day by Ana Rodrigues in what has become a sizeable blogging chain. The chain was started by Colin Devroe.

I rarely have a set daily schedule, but this is typically how my weekdays proceed:

7:00-8:30 Wake up and breakfast

I can't remember the last time I used an alarm clock since lockdown, but without I normally wakeup by 8 o'clock anyway. Before the pandemic I'd almost always use an alarm as I needed to allow for a 90-minute commute, door-to-door, into Central London alternate days of the working week. Now that I'm not in alternate modes of home and office days, I sleep much better generally.

After bathroom duties and getting dressed it's time for breakfast. This usually consists of Barry's Irish breakfast tea, a couple of portions of fruit and toast. Meanwhile, if I'm in the mood I'll have some TV news on in the background or, if that's unbearably miserable, something like a YouTube travel vlog.

8:30-9:30

Depending on the weather I usually do a walk round the block or head to the High Street for a takeaway coffee and walk round the castle grounds if it's a Friday.

9:30-10:30

I head for work in my spare bedroom which is west-facing and on a good day the sun is pleasantly beaming in to keep me in good spirits for the day ahead. In this time I warm up the brain cells, catch up on Slack messages, Trello, GitHub pull requests and address anything urgent. For quieter work days I also use this time to keep up-to-date with any recent tech news and articles relevant to my work.

10:30-13:00

On some days I've a team meeting over Zoom in this time, but otherwise it's my focus time for getting things done. I take a brief pause mid-morning for a large mug of strong coffee and fuel my hunger with something sweet. Unless on a call, I normally have Spotify on constantly when working or sometimes listen to 6 Music radio.

13:00-14:00

Lunchtime. I usually make something that's quick and simple such as a quiché or flat breads with humus and some salad. I try to fit in a brief walk round the streets and park nearby if the weather's good, or else, spend it catching up on my personal emails, life admin and Twitter.

14:00-17:30

Back to work for the afternoon. Sometimes this is the best part of my day for productivity, but on others it's my worst and I find it harder to focus. Depending on the day or any projects I'm on then there's usually at least one Zoom call such as a 1:1 with my manager or occasional team and client meetings. I normally take a brief pause around half-way through the afternoon for tea and a small snack.

17:30-19:00

Come five-thirty I usually stop work and go cycling, indoors or outdoors depending on the weather and available hours of daylight. I'm lucky to have the countryside on my doorstep which means I can easily go for an hour's ride and cover a reasonable distance at speed on quiet undulating roads. Twice a week it's also the time I use to pickup groceries at the superstore. Whatever the activity I try to follow up with a shower and redress from what I wore during the daytime. I find this often helps me to transition from work to leisure time in the evenings.

19:00-21:00

Every couple of weeks I help organise Homebrew Website Club with Ana. Also, occasionally I attend other meetups virtually. Otherwise, I normally use this time for cooking an evening meal, sometimes with a podcast playing when I'm making a meal from scratch. On the rare occasion I'm feeling a spurt of evening brain power, then I might also use any free time to work on a blog post or study some web standards.

21:00-23:00

Around this time I clean up in the kitchen, make a cup of Earl Grey tea and watch one or two things on catch-up TV, YouTube or a film. Recently this has included Long Way Up , Succession and an old favourite is Have I Got News for You.

23:00-00:00

Bedtime. My flat has no source of daytime heating like a boiler, so before I go to bed I check the temperature for the following day to judge if I turn on my Eco-7 storage heaters for the night. Then I go to bed, read a chapter or two from a book and then it's off to dreamland.

And that's roughly my typical day folks!

In all honesty many of my days are a struggle to get going with some kind of regular routine. In case you hadn't guessed it yet, I live alone at the moment and the missing ingredients of offline social interaction, a simple hug, a "good morning" or "how are you today?" from someone else has made my typical day in lockdown that little bit tougher. Having a rough routine of cycling, cooking, listening to music, running a regular virtual event and adding other little pieces of variety in my week all help just a little in keeping me mentally healthy through the pandemic.

To keep this chain going I'd like to invite Amber and Seb to share their own typical day if they'd like to.