I thought it would be fun to share what a typical day looks like in my life.

While I travel a lot, and my days vary according to what’s going on in my life and business at any given time, this is a typical “boring day”. Just a Thursday, even.

I actually kept a Time Log yesterday, which is an exercise I do from time to time to improve efficiency and productivity.

I’ll share more about that with you as well. As you can see, my day starts with coffee – and I usually enjoy my first cup outdoors. If I wake early (and I usually do), I enjoy my coffee on the back deck and enjoy the sunrise. Otherwise I sit on the back steps out back while I take the Danes out. Either way, it’s always a moment of reflection with that first cup, thinking over the day before and the day ahead…

I’m a creature of habit, and I love my quiet morning time, so if I have to be somewhere first thing in the morning… I’ll get up ridiculously early (4am even) just to have those quiet moments over coffee.

Next, I thumb through my mobile device, still enjoying the morning outdoors, and see what happened with business while I was sleeping. I check each of my email accounts, blog comments, Facebook notifications, Tweets, etc. Just to get an idea what might need my attention first.

Before I actually sit down at my desk, I start or finish laundry (which is an ongoing process around here with a teenager, lol), water my plants – and pluck off any bad leaves or old blooms, take the Danes out, then straighten up whatever mess I left on my desk the day before. All before 7am.

And I usually don’t get up until 6-6:30am, by the way. Though I do enjoy the rare earlier hours.

By then I’m making my second cup of coffee, wide awake, and ready to dig in to my Priority Tasks. I always start with the top three things I need to accomplish for the day, and get those knocked out first.

Yesterday (which is the Thursday I was referring to), my top three priorities were:

• Edit & Upload Video for my Vlog
• Answer Questions on my Forum
• Write Guest Post that was due (that day! ack, lol)

So on this particular day I watered the plants, folded a load of laundry and started a second, paid some bills & transferred some funds, did the video editing then uploaded & shared it, answered a few important emails, wrote & published a guest post, and answered all the open questions at my forum – all before 9am.

9am to Noon

Once I got all that out of the way I did a few more emails, coordinated with guest bloggers for multiple sites, edited & published a guest post here on ClickNewz, checked in on my forum again, worked on the backend of a new site I’m launching, and then at 11am (my time) hosted Brainstorming Hour with my Elite Members.

To be honest, Thursday’s are always a longer morning for me – given I have Brainstorming Hour scheduled at 11am every week. So I tend to stay at my desk and do tasks or work on creative projects until 11:00 – where I might be out of the office a lot earlier on other mornings.

12:30 – 3:30pm

After Brainstorming Hour, I tidied up my desk and uploaded the recording, and was out of my office within a half hour. I enjoyed a quiet lunch, wound down, and then took my usual 2-hour afternoon nap.

If nothing else gets done in a day, I always sleep easy knowing how much I’ve accomplished before lunchtime…

3:30 – 5:00pm

After my nap I make another pot of coffee. I do love my coffee!

I took the Danes out, checked in on my forum (again) and tended to the few important emails that came in while I was sleeping. Then I answered Facebook messages while enjoying my coffee.

I did a bit of necessary housework after that. Threw in another load of laundry, swept the floors, loaded the dishwasher – just the basics. And by the way, if you can come up with a product to make out of dog hair… I could be your primary source for materials. No charge, but you’d have to come “collect it” (sweep it up).

5:00 – 11:00pm

I finally grabbed a shower and got myself together. And since I was clean and dressed I decided to shoot a video for my Personal Video Blog.

Of course, Slim (my Great Dane) has to have his cuddles in the evening, so I combined the two and made that the topic of my video – LOL.

The house was quiet, and I had some free time, so I went ahead and downloaded the raw video and did the editing so it would be ready to publish when I came back to my desk the next morning.

By then my company arrived and I enjoyed a really nice evening. The weather was fabulous so we hung out on the back deck, then ordered out a nice dinner, and I watched one of my favorite shows: Person of Interest. I basically spent the rest of the day winding down and enjoying quality time with my handsome fellow.

Six + Two

Typically I sleep around 6 hours at night, and then 2 hours in the afternoon. And most days I’m done with my work by 10am, though I’ll often find things to do (non-money tasks, or creative projects) if I happen to be home and the house is quiet. Otherwise in the afternoons/evenings I’ll enjoy dinner & movies with my teen daughter. And on many days an hour long talk with my grown son in the late afternoon. He’s doing fabulous out on his own, by the way.

There’s enough flexibility in my schedule to go to the city for long lunches (this past Tuesday), or take off and go hike Burgess Falls (last Tuesday). And of course I travel often, and when I do – I simply work mobile, if/when work needs to be done.

I’m very happy with my schedule and my lifestyle…

Keeping a Time Log

If you’re feeling frustrated with your schedule, efficiency, or productivity… keeping a Time Log is a great exercise. I decided to do it again this week because I had a heavier work load than usual. Mainly because we’re doing some upgrades & updates across several sites right now. I’m in hyper-productive mode!

My advice is to track everything you do, when you do it, and how long it takes you for 3 straight days. I simply use a notepad by my desk, but Evernote is great too (especially if you’re doing a lot of things mobile, or away from your desk).

It’s incredibly eye-opening. You’ll immediately start to see where you might be wasting time, what your most creative/productive hours are in the day, what you’re doing during those hours (are you doing social media or reading blogs when you’re at your creative peak, or trying to do creative projects when the house is noisy & distracting?!)… and changes you could make to improve the flow of your day.

I encourage you to try it out for yourself!

I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into my typical Thursday.

Best,

Next see: Ready to Get Serious About Making Money?
(I’ve included a new video at the end of that post)