Her Time: Find Moments To Center Yourself
Today we share a day in the life of another small business owner who is working with a business coach to find breaks in her schedule where she can check in and center herself. She spends her day in Wedge Dansko Sandals, which may not be the cutest, but are essential when you’re standing for 8 hours a day.
Age: 36
Family: Husband and two kids aged 5 and 2.5.
Home: Waynewood, Alexandria, Virginia
Education: I took a break from college when my part-time job turned into something full-time, and never looked back.
Work: Owner, Chief Executive Offer, and wearer of many hats
Hobbies: I'm in a season of life where I don't personally have many hobbies outside of running a business and chasing around 2 young kids with tons of activities. Any free time I have leftover I love to spend painting (acrylic and oil) and going on walks.
What were your time management habits growing up?
Growing up I had a very structured routine with school, sports, clubs, and eventually an after-school job. I was used to being busy, so I think that translated into having a very structured and full schedule as an adult.
Did you use those planners that they handed out in school?
Big fan of planners! I was either last minute or on time. If I was interested in an assignment, there was a much higher probability of getting it done on time, which rings true in my adult life too.
What are your time management habits now?
The events industry runs at warp speed, so time management is the most critical part of my day. I use a combination of a very detailed Google calendar and a web-based task manager for myself and my entire team.
Do you feel like you have enough time in the day to accomplish everything you’d like to do?
Definitely not. The number one stressor in my life right now is the feeling that there just isn't enough time in the day. I recently started working with a business coach (she's a literal angel on earth) and I'm working hard to prioritize what urgently needs to get done and release what needs to get pushed to another day. It'll still be there tomorrow.
What do you do when you feel like you don’t have enough time, or you feel like you are sacrificing your me-time to get things done for work or family?
I think it's pretty typical for women, and especially moms, to sacrifice me-time to keep all the balls in the air. One of my goals for 2023 was to restore at least a few hours a week in my schedule to just focus on myself. I'm lucky that my husband is really active and involved with our kids, so he's been great about getting everyone out of the house for a few hours each week. It's incredible how restorative 2 hours of quiet is – a true luxury.
Her Time
5 AM: The alarm goes off (and probably gets snoozed 3 times). I usually start each day by checking emails to get a status report on flower shipments arriving at the studio that morning. It's pretty common to jump on a call with a wholesaler to troubleshoot problem areas before I get out of bed. Most of our local flower markets open at 3 AM, so it's an early industry.
5:15 AM: Shower and blow out my hair. Catch up on a show while getting ready and pray the kids stay asleep.
6:00 AM: Kids are up and are probably fighting over the remote. We aren't a big TV family, but it's the only way we get ourselves together and pack lunches in the morning.
6:30 AM: Kids are dressed and bags are packed for school. My two-year-old asks to wear three hair bows and a purse and throws fit that her favorite Peppa Pig socks are in the laundry. We settle on rainbow socks instead, and order is restored.
7:00 AM: Our incredible nanny arrives and takes over the chaos. She gets breakfast on the table and our oldest to school. My husband and I are both out the door a few minutes later.
7:30 AM: Arrive at work after a quick stop at Starbucks.
8:00 AM: Staff arrive and we hit the ground running. Mornings are the busiest in the studio. Our cooler team is processing event flowers (sometimes they are working with thousands of stems that need to be meticulously checked, sorted, and processed). Our design team is usually working away at same-day orders that are coming in, and our drivers are getting out the door on their morning delivery runs. It's a flurry of activity.
8:15 AM: All staff huddle. We start each day with a 5-minute meeting to review priorities for the day and to look ahead at the next couple of days. I'm nervous about a big embassy event, so we spend most of the time talking through how this event is going to come together.
9:00 AM: I'm in front of the computer for the first time this morning and facing thirty-nine flagged emails and a stack of events that need flowers ordered. Let's do this.
11:00 AM: In the car running to a quick walkthrough downtown for an April wedding. I'm stressing about all the emails in my inbox, so I turn on a podcast to distract myself. My business coach worked with me to identify breaks in my day where I can center myself, and driving time has become a prime time to do this.
12:45 PM: What was supposed to be a quick walkthrough turned into almost two hours of my day. I'm starving and my car is empty with 7 miles to go, (why do I do this to myself?) so I pull into a gas station. Peanut M&Ms and a Diet Coke for lunch and I race back to the shop.
2:00 PM: Meet with a client for a corporate event in May. We make a ton of headway on design and select vases & votives.
2:30 PM: Make revisions to a few proposals and get ordering done for a few last-minute weekend events.
3:10 PM: It starts to rain, so I decide to pull trash cans full of cherry branches back inside the studio. Grossly overestimate my own strength, knock one over, and pour water all over my pants and shoes. Awesome.
3:15 PM: Finally get my hands in flowers for the first time. I have a long-time client who is sending flowers for a new baby and I make something extra beautiful for her. It's sweet pea season and I am so excited to use some of the beautiful blushy stems that arrived this week.
4:00 PM: The shop closes for the day and we do a team clean-up of the design floor. It's wild how many stems are on the floor after a busy day. We fill eleven trash cans and haul the bags out to the dumpster. All of the flowers get organized on carts and tucked into the cooler for the night.
4:15 PM: Get back to my desk and savor the quiet. Our phones are forwarded after 4 PM and all of the staff have gone home. I get more done on the computer between 4 and 5 PM than I do all day. It feels great to cross so many things off of my to-do list.
5:00 PM: Drive home and talk to my mom the whole way.
5:30 PM: Arrive home to find my kids in the driveway with sidewalk chalk. We run inside to get changed for T Ball practice. Per usual, we can't find anything and spend 10 minutes frantically looking for J’s baseball glove and his left cleat. Find everything, and rush off to Waynewood Park for practice.
6:30 PM: Practice is over, and my husband and I sit on a bench while the kids play on the playground. We both agree we're too tired to "make a real dinner" so we order Chinese. Our kids are obsessed with egg rolls, and we decide to split two chicken dishes.
7:15 PM: Dinner arrives and we sit around the table. Our five-year-old tells us about his school day- he's especially excited about the colors he's learned in Spanish. Our two-year-old is in a total mood, so we hurry up to finish dinner and get bedtime routines started.
7:45 PM: Throw both kids in the bath, brush their teeth, and get everyone in pajamas. We read books and get everyone to bed relatively easily. Phew.
8:30 PM: My husband unloads the dishwasher while I sit at the kitchen island and work on my laptop for a few hours. We chat about the day and run through all the kid's activities over the weekend.
11:00 PM: Bedtime...
11:20 PM: Can't sleep, and probably sending ridiculous memes on Instagram to my husband and friends.
Midnight: Asleep, for real.
