A Day in the Life of a Graphic Designer

 

By nature, I am quite a workhorse. I love very much to be busy, working and doing a multitude of other things. The up side to that is that I am never ever bored. The down side and is that there are moments when I can feel overwhelmed and a smidgen burned out.

I’ve been wanting to work on becoming much more productive in this life of mine, really focusing on things that matter and not wasting the good hours of my day on non-productive things.

I am a full time graphic designer, I work the freelance side-hustle of graphic design, I am a wife, step-mother to two teenage boys, and a momma to two wonderful dogs.

This is what my ideal, normal weekday looks like:

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5:30am | Wake up – scroll my phone for any social media notifications or emails that would be enjoyable to read in bed, like family and friend emails. I skip the work ones and save those for later.

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5:45am | Go downstairs and start my car (it feels like it’s been cold for so long that that’s all I remember ever doing when I first go downstairs in the morning.) I come back inside, make myself a to – go cup of coffee, grab my lunch which are dinner leftovers from the night before, and hit the road.

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6:00am | I hit the road to my office. I work about 35 miles from the full-time day job, so the commute takes me about 1 hour to 1:15 hours (hello, DC commute), it just depends on the day or if I get out of the house earlier than 6:30. I find it to be a wonderful time of peace and quiet, filled with WTOP talk radio and podcasts highlighting creative entrepreneurs. A long commute bothers so many people in this area, but it doesn’t bother me.

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7:00am – 2:30pm | I design a monthly magazine publication for a non-profit as a full time gig, so that is what I do most of my day. I have a wonderful set up where I come in early, and leave early, but am always available remotely in the evenings if something needs to get done.

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2:30pm | I hope in my car for another hour long trip back home – which is also filled with talk radio and my favorite podcasts. ( I’ll share those in an upcoming post)

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3:30pm | I come home to my husband who is normally home by this time and the boys who are home from school. I pull some meat out of the freezer for dinner, either chicken, beef, or pork and start to think of creative ways I can feed my family while I get ready for my workout.

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3:45pm | I’m a big Beachbody T25 fan, 25 minute workouts everyday with really great results. I do my T25 workout and then I do another 15-30 minutes of yoga. I LOVE yoga – I’m turning into a yogi without even realizing it! It’s just so wonderful, it calms my achey muscles and allows me to refocus and release tension (which I carry a lot of).

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4:30pm | I start to make dinner. I usually have an idea in my head from thinking about what I have in my fridge throughout my day. One of my favorite things to do is make dinner for my family. It’s so fun to think up a meal throughout my day. At this time I peruse Pinterest in search of my idea to see how other people have done it. I then get to work.

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5:00pm | This is the time our oldest usually leaves for work so I try to have a little something ready for him so he can scarf it down before he goes and delivers pizzas. (Side note: Every night my poor boy is stiffed by a person who doesn’t tip him. Pizza Delivery Guys live off of tips just like waiters so PLEASE tip your delivery guys (and gals)!!)

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5:15-5:30pm | This is when the four of us (minus our oldest most nights) sit to eat dinner. I’m not sure why we eat so early. I think it’s because we start our day so early, but also since I’m just a go go go person- I get it done as soon as I finish my workout. We eat, talk, and just have a nice time together as a family. Family dinner together is a huge priority for our family.

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6:30pm | My husband and I clean up dinner. I also clean up as I cook – so dinner clean up isn’t ever really that bad.

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6:45pm | I head upstairs to my office/studio and get to work on my freelance hustle. I answer client emails, work on mockups for a client, check the status of client payments, and do some invoicing of past projects that are closed and complete.

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8:30pm | This is my ideal time to STOP freelance work. If I don’t stop now – the rest of my night time groove is thrown off. So I generally try to stop at 8:30. I hop in the shower and get ready for bed. I have very curly hair and the best time for me to wash it and not use any heat treatment is at night. I also only wash my hair with conditioner and use solely leave in conditioner and hairspray to style my hair, but that routine is also for another post entirely.

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9:00pm | I go downstairs to hang out with my boys for a bit, or just say good night and come upstairs.

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9:15pm | I usually check social media again, play a little bit of a guilty pleasure iPad game, and maybe do some light reading.

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9:15pm – 10:00 pm | Hang out a little with my husband and am usually asleep no later than 10:00pm.

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And that is my day! Seeing that we don’t have small children that need our constant care or attention, my life is pretty much set up so that I can be productive, get plenty of sleep, and have some flexibility in my schedule for going out and other evening activites. A lot of times my freelance requires more from me, so I’ll work some after my workout/before dinner or later into the night. In reality, I’m very blessed to have the schedule that I have, and I thank the Lord often for it.

The thing I could probably cut in order to have more time to be productive in my day is sleep – like wake up earlier – but I just can’t seem to make that work! If I could wake up earlier and do my workout in the AM before work – that would free up my afternoon a lot more. It’s a goal I can hope to reach one day – but I don’t think today is that day.

Thanks for reading!