I’ve been wanting to a share a day in my life for months now, and in fact, I had a post drafted about a year ago for HelloBee to share my typical day as a stay at home mom.  See, in addition to running my business full time, I take care of our daughter Chloe who is 17 months old.  That’s right, I’m a full time mama and a full time designer.  Before I share the ins and outs of my day with you, I want to preface this post with a few things.

My goal was to become a WAHM long before we started a family.  I started my freelance work nearly ten years ago with the intention of turning my passion into my career, and over time, I did.  It took a long time, a lot of hard work, and even more trial and error to get where I am today.  Believe me when I say that this did not happen easily, quickly, or over night for me.  For many years, I worked two full time jobs.  I worked during the day at my dad’s office in the accounts receivable department, where I was responsible for invoicing and bookkeeping.  It taught me a lot about how to run a business, which is absolutely essential for running my own.  I worked for my dad’s company for nearly seven years, and during that time period I also freelanced for a rape crisis clinic and designed wedding stationery in the evenings and weekends.  That’s how busy I was, and how passionate about my dream I was, and that’s how I was able to save for my future family and make my dreams become a reality.  Today I am blessed to work full time as a graphic designer in my home studio.  I primarily design wedding stationery and I love love love working with my brides.  Shortly before and during my pregnancy, I added a line of lifestyle stationery, birth announcements and more recently, I added lifestyle accessories to my product line as well. I have a few new product lines in the works, and I’m beyond excited to share those with you!!

I am a professional graphic designer.  This is my career, my joy and my passion.  My job helps pay for our household groceries, our mortgage,  our car payment and other miscellaneous household expenses.  Starting this fall, it’s going to pay for my daughters preschool, too.  (Wait, wasn’t she just swaddled?!)  I never really know what to say when I meet someone and they ask me what I do.  The term “Graphic Designer” is so broad.  If I say I’m a wedding stationer, people give me that deer in a headlights look because in my neck of the woods, wedding invitations are still chosen from a gigantic black book at the local party store.  So even though I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for almost ten years (eeek!), I still don’t really know how to label my job description.  I am a professional graphic designer, though, so that’s usually my default response… and I always add that I’m also a full time mama to a beautiful little girl that keeps me on my toes.   

Working from home means that I often struggle balancing my home life and my work life. Emily Ley really encouraged me to figure out what mattered most.  I had this unrealistic expecation of what being a working mom would be like.  Everyone told me that babies would sleep so I assumed I’d be able to work during her nap times, and that just wasn’t that case for us.  My baby didn’t like to sleep.  In the first few months, I found myself absolutely exhausted and pulled in way too many directions.  I didn’t feel like the best mama or the best designer, and I saw the dishes and laundry piling up and I just felt so, so defeated.  I took a few days to reflect, figured out what mattered most, and set aside my pride.  As much as I hated to admit it, I needed help.  Last summer, we hired a caregiver, I set office hours and my life completely changed.  I feel balanced.  I watched my business explode.  I have a schedule.  I wondered why I didn’t take Emily’s advice eight months earlier. 

With that said, what exactly do I do all day?  It’s a lot more than just emails and diapers.  And I do way more than just sit around and make things look pretty.

Chloe is usually up by 7 but there are days that she sleeps until 7:30.   Once she’s up, she doesn’t like to be in her crib for very long.  If Ben is still home, he likes to get her up in the morning.  I brush my teeth and start making coffee while he gets her and changes her diaper.  Then I get her dressed and start breakfast.  We alternate between strawberry oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, homemade waffles, french toast, and whole wheat cinnamon raisin bread.  She’s a big eater, and likes a big breakfast to start her day!  Ben is always out the door by 7:30am to get to work.

After breakfast, it’s play time!  We spend our mornings coloring, playing Princess (my favorite), and read books.  I spend some time cleaning up around the house… cleaning up after breakfast, throwing in a load of laundry, folding laundry from the night before, putting laundry away, vacuuming the living room and generally trying to clean up.  It can be a bit difficult and counter productive when Chloe is awake.  She’s 17 months old now, and one of her favorite games is to dump every toy out of the toy box or throw every book off the book shelf.  I spend more time picking up her toys than I do anything else, and I often wonder why I even bother.  I have to, though, or else you couldn’t walk through our house.  We usually have a snack before the sitter gets here, too.  This kid likes to eat!

I’m at my desk by 10am. I load up Spotify (I can’t work without music!) and go through my inbox again.  I get a lot of junk mail.  I read through all my emails, and flag the messages that must be answered immediately and leave the rest for later.  I filter them in order of importance and deadline.  I spend some time answering emails, then I check Etsy.  I get a lot of Etsy convos as well, so I spend time answering those.

I normally schedule consultations or phone conferences in the morning.  If I don’t have any consultations or conferences, the morning is solely dedicated to design work and packaging orders for delivery.  Then I start going through all my open orders, and fire up Adobe Illustrator.

My design process has several phases.  I work in order of deadline, meaning existing orders with requested revisions are handled first and new orders are designed second.  Depending on the complexity of the design, and what I’m working on (a wedding invitation is more complicated than a stamp, for instance) my design process can take anywhere from twenty minutes to three hours.  Once a proof is completed, I save my files and email proofs to my client.

My actual design schedule is different every day and relies entirely on the types of orders I get.  At any given time, I can have as many as ten wedding orders.  Now that graduation is approaching, I’m working on graduation announcements as well.  In addition to weddings and graduations, I’ve been working on baby shower thank you cards, return address stamps and Etsy orders.  To keep organized, I created an order form that I use for each client.  It has their name, order number, production date, ship by date, and all notes — this is where I list their order details, like quantity, chosen colors and fonts, whether or not they’d like to include envelopes with their order, and any special instructions.

 If samples have been ordered, or I have orders to ship, I do this first thing in the morning.  Our mail carrier usually comes before noon so I make sure these are done before she’s here. 

This past week, I had a lot of orders to ship to the majority of my days were filled with fulfilling them.  I had several hundred stamp orders to ship!  In effort to streamline the process, I spent most of my evenings pre-folding boxes and creating shipping labels.  Shipping this bulk order made me realize how small my studio is and I started begging my husband for a bigger house. 

I force myself to stop at 11:30 to take a lunch break.  I make lunch for Chloe and myself, and even though our caregiver will feed her and I eat at my desk, I make sure to take this break every single day. I like being able to take a break and see her!  Lunch for Chloe is usually mac n cheese, wedding soup, grilled cheese, chicken fingers, left overs from dinner the night before (a pasta dish, a homemade Mexican dish, meatballs, etc) and I heat myself up something quick (like soup, a quick salad, bagel bites or left overs from the night before) and eat at my desk.. 

After lunch is over I sift through emails again.  It always amazes me how many emails I can get in such a short amount of time!  I flag the messages that must be answered immediately and leave the rest for later.  I filter them in order of importance and deadline.  At any given time, I can have as many as 20 unread messages in my inbox.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen it at 0!

After lunch is when I get the bulk of my work done.  Because I’m on the East Coast and I work with clients all over the world, most of my emails come through in the mid to late afternoon.  This is when most of my West Coast clients are responding to messages that I sent earlier in the morning, or when clients on the other side of the world are getting home from work and checking their messages.

I take care of administrative tasks during this time period, as well.   There’s bookkeeping to be done, receipts to be filed, financial transactions to be tracked, inventory to be taken, and inquiries to be responded to.  Working for my dad’s company for so many years has helped me streamline this process, and I’m grateful that I know how to do bookkeeping myself.  It’s made tax time so much easier for me. 

I file my order forms into two file folders — one goes into Open Orders and one goes into Quotes.  Once a quote has been accepted, it gets moved into the Open Orders folder.  Once an order has been completed, it gets filed into my Completed drawer. 

Our caregiver leaves at 2:00pm.  Chloe naps during this time, although her nap schedule isn’t always predictable.  Sometimes she’ll nap from 1-3.  Other times she’ll nap from 2-5.  Sometimes, like today, she’ll boycott naps all together.  On a good day, she’ll nap from 2-4.  During her nap time I’ll take care of a few household chores, like finish the laundry that I’d started in the morning and put away the dishes.  Then it’s back to my studio to finish working on open orders, send files to print, and edit photos for blog posts and Etsy listings.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I have to be focused and work diligently.  There’s no time for distraction during work hours.  As much as I’d love to browse Pinterest all day I simply can’t, but I do make some time to Pin and re-Pin new items.  If there’s any time left before she wakes up, I schedule blog posts and Facebook announcements.  I run promotions seasonally, so I use this time to design and schedule newsletters as well.

On a good day, Chloe sleeps until 4:00pm.  Sometimes she’ll surprise me and nap until 5.  Regardless of when she wakes up, I stop what I am doing and am back into mama mode the second she’s awake.  There’s lots of hugs and kisses involved, and a diaper change, too.  I make her a snack and fill her sippy cup, and we settle in the living room for snack time.  I usually finish folding laundry and we watch Disney Junior until Ben gets home at 5:15. 

2:15 – 4:00pm
There is no such thing as negotiating with a toddler.  Today Chloe decided to boycott sleep.  She refused to sleep in her crib and threw a tantrum.  Awesome!  I tried to get her to take a nap with me and even let her lay in our bed, but we spent over an hour giggling under the covers and talking.  I’m waiving my white flag and have settling on calling my mom instead.  I need some adult interaction!

Oh my heavens, she’s taking a nap.  You might think this is a good thing, but a very late nap is bad news bears.  I plan on waking her up by the time her papa gets home.  Otherwise, she’ll never go to sleep tonight.

Now that Ben is home from work, we get to have family time!  Chloe is always so excited when her papa comes home, and for the next twenty minutes or so it’s like I don’t exist.  She and her papa play, read stories and run around the house.  By 6:00, we’re all starving and it’s time for dinner so we start cooking.

6:00pm – 7:00pm
It’s dinner time.  We meal plan every Sunday and plan a week in advance so we don’t waste time wondering what’s for dinner every night.  Meal planning allows us to maximize our family time, eat healthy, and try new foods and recipes.  Every Sunday, we make a meal plan for the week then go grocery shopping based on the list.  Between couponing and meal planning, we’re able to maximize our savings as well.  Tonight we’re having homemade Mexican — Mexican rice, black beans, tomatoes, marinated chicken, homemade guacamole, tortillas and sour cream.  Chloe approves.

7:00pm
After dinner, it’s bath time for Chloe.  Ben is in charge of bath time, and I’m in charge of cleaning up after dinner.  I try to hurry through the dishes so I can tackle the living room and dining room next. Our daughter is like a tiny tornado, and even though we have a small house, it takes her five minutes to destroy the entire house.  Like I said, her favorite game is to empty every toy box and bookshelf.  After bath time, it’s quiet time.  We put on her PJs, read a book, and snuggle in the living room.  We let her watch Doc McStuffins at 7:30pm.

8:00pm
She knows that when Doc is over, it’s bedtime.  At 8:00pm on the dot, she’ll walk into her bedroom, give us kisses and tell us “nite nite”.  She’s pretty good about sleeping through the night, but lately she’s been walking up a few times before she really settles for the night.  Thankfully, she’s been waking before 10pm so we still get a full night of sleep.  Chloe mostly needs reassured that we’re still here, or wants some water, or needs a diaper change.

8:00pm – 11:00pm
Most evenings, my husband and I settle on the couch together to catch up on our favorite shows.  On Sundays, we watch Shameless.  In the summer, we watch TrueBlood and Dexter.  His work schedule has been a bit demanding lately, so there are some evenings after Chloe goes to bed that he has to work.  These nights, I either go back to work myself or catch up on the DVR.  I’m usually in bed first, though, and depending on how tired I am, I go to bed anywhere between 9:30pm and 11:00pm.  My husband is usually in bed around 11:30 and 12am.  I’m almost always asleep first!

We’re homeowners, so it’s important to note that we have to sprinkle in care for our home as well.  There’s renovation projects (the bathroom and kitchen are hopefully being tackled some time this summer), and there’s seasonal maintenance like lawn care, shoveling snow and gardening.  Depending on when these tasks are taken care of (and it’s usually my husband mowing the lawn after work and before dinner) and what time of day it is, my work load may have to be put on hold for a bit. 

I’d love for you to think that being a work at home mom is glamorous.  Hell, I’d love for it to be.  Did you notice that in my day, I never once mentioned taking a shower?  Putting on make up?  Getting dressed for the day?  That’s because every day, I roll out of bed and wear the same yoga pants I fell asleep in the night before.  If I’m super lucky, Chloe will sleep in & I’ll get to take a hot shower.  If not, I’ll wait until Ben gets home from work.  I don’t wear make up unless I am leaving the house & I can’t tell you the last time I used a flat iron.  I’m saying this as the person who used to take two hours to get ready in the morning before leaving for work! 

There’s a lot of other behind the scenes stuff, too!  I host my website and blog, and have to pay for both of those.  I have to keep on top of renewing both domains as well.  In addition to design work, I have to blog, update my website with new content, renew and update Etsy listings, edit and post items for sale on my website and use social media.  There’s PR and marketing that I do for myself.  I participate in photo shoots, so there’s coordinating with the other vendors, phone conferences and making sure we’re all on the same page.  I have to keep current on things like pricing (for printing and postage) and update my pricing sheets accordingly, then update my website and Etsy to reflect these updates.  There’s paying my vendors and tracking those expenses.  I track my blog stats and update my media kit for sponsorship opportunities.  I design freebies and downloads for you and for HeartLoveWeddings.

I absolutely love being a wife, a mama & a designer.  I’ll bet you’re thinking that my day sounds hectic, but I promise you that it’s streamlined and organized & that everything goes off without a hitch.  It helps that I have a Type-A personality.  Having a schedule allows me to prepare in advance and streamline my business.  That’s why I always exceed my deadlines, and why I’m always early for consultations.  We’re hoping to add to our family in 2013, which means I need my days to be organized and streamlined in order to be successful. 

This is just how we do things, and every mama and every household does things differently.  If you’re wondering how someone else may run their business and household, why don’t you take a peek into the lives of some of my other work-at-home friends?

Brenda with Brenda’s Wedding Blog
Demaris with LeMagnifique Blog

Heather with Style Unveiled
Meg with Happy Kids Inc Blog
Kylie with Made by a Princess Blog
Maddy with Somewhere Splendid
Chelsey with Chelsey Emery Design Blog