BBB: A Day In The Life…

I saw my friend and fellow blogger, Faye-Marie at FashionBeautyetc doing one of these posts and found it fascinating to read about a normal day for her. I’m torn about doing this myself and thinking maybe readers will find it interesting but then, in my view, it’s not actually that interesting, so just going to jump into it without looking!

6.30am My brain is working on summer mode at the moment and I sleep with the curtains open so that I wake with the light. I always feel so much better to wake naturally than to wake up groggy which I do with the curtains shut. I go downstairs and let my dogs, Honey and Coco, outside and put the kettle on for a cuppa. I grab my I Phone while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil and see if anything happened overnight.

7.30am I am usually up, showered and dressed by this time and after putting some make-up on, head out to pick up a Costa Cortado before walking the dogs. It’s my reward, especially in winter, for battling the elements! Sometimes my friends are extra lovely and come with me for the dog walk – it’s just about the only chance I have to catch up with them.

8.45-9.00am As soon as I get home and feed the dogs, I do a quick tidy round if there is time and then sit at my laptop with a diet Coke. I moderate comments, think of blog posts to do and start answering emails. Emails are the thing I struggle with most – I just can’t ever seem to keep up. Currently there are over 800 unread in my combined in-boxes. I like to blog organically – i.e. I don’t very often plan ahead.. I take the day as it comes and like to be reactive to things that happen in the now.

10am By this time I’ve answered anything urgent and taken some pictures or swatches of new products. If I have meetings in London then I try and make them for 11ish so I can get that hour of essentials in first. Usually the postman has been and there is a little pile of parcels waiting for attention. I have no end of trouble convincing him I’m not a compulsive shopper.

11am Usually, the first meeting of the day – this could be with a PR showing me new product or a meeting about any number of projects I’m working on. I never go into London with just one meeting scheduled and get super-annoyed if anyone cancels on the day because I am then just hanging around with dead-time as I have no central office space and I inevitably end up killing that time in Zara.. which is expensive. I check my I Phone constantly throughout the day and if I can, reply to any messages on the go. I’m still slow though so it’s frustrating to do it this way when it would take a nano second on the lap top. I’m still new enough to I Phone that I accidentally send out some mortifying auto-correct fails ;-).

12pm I work quite extensively with brands and agencies who want to know how to work well with bloggers – they can ask me absolutely anything and it’s a confidential space to ask all the things they ever wanted to know, as well as advising on things like how to be interesting on Twitter but stay within the brand protocol. That’s something that a lot of brands struggle with because they need to stay professional but also have a human side and the two are very often at odds with each other. A meeting like this generally lasts two hours and we bounce ideas around until they’re happy and more confident going forward.

2pm If I’m in London I squeeze in one last meeting, or if possible, go through one of the department store beauty halls to see what’s new and what the vibe is. They all have their own personalities and if you do it often enough, you start to realise that there are different atmospheres in different stores even if the products are more or less the same.

3pm I need to be heading home by this time because a) my dogs can’t be left for too long and b) I probably haven’t even blogged yet! If I’ve been organized the night before then I might have put a scheduled post up, but I try my best always to blog live.

4pm I’m home, then it’s more email answering, resizing images, blog posting and fact checking. I never do one big food shop.. I don’t and never have understood how to know what I’d like to eat for the next few days. I grab family food as and when I can.. so if I pass somewhere (thank god for Waitrose on Oxford Street) I will whizz in and buy something. I am absolutely that drudge squad mum who sits in a posh venue or meeting with a handbag full of dog food, fish fingers and beans!

5pm I usually have a couple of features on the go for the publications I write for (currently I have eight on the waiting list to get done) so I will try and crack on with those. I’ve never missed a deadline yet but sometimes it’s down to the wire! I’ll also use this time to make phone-calls if needs be. Sometimes it’s just quicker to phone than start an email chain.

6pm Somehow the start of the BBC news is a trigger for me to load up the dishwasher or get the washing on – I’ll whizz round the house for half an hour to get the boring stuff done before coming back to the lap top. I don’t listen to music but will have Radio 4 or some kind of show on TV on quietly in the background as I find it quite soothing.

7pm I flick between moderating blog comments, Tweeting and writing almost constantly during the day – on any given day the chances are high that I will have been on Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Twitter , Pinterest and Linked In – it’s wrecked my concentration ability, I can tell you. Usually I make a quick supper and try and take an hour out of being on-line.

8pm I am checking back in on Twitter and replying to any Tweets and half watching Twitter and half watching TV at this time. If I haven’t been able to get a newspaper, I’ll read up on the news headlines on-line.

9pm I live Tweet my posts for the day so that anyone who hasn’t checked in gets a little reminder to do so. This is quite important for stats and Twitter is one of my biggest stats generators. I prefer to do this live rather than schedule. More often than not, I have a dog either side of me, snuggling in for cuddles but making it rather difficult to type.

10pm I am usually vegging out in front of the TV or having a very hot soak in something lovely from Aromatherapy Associates.

11.30 I always have to read at least a page of a book before I go to sleep. I love getting into bed and opening my book and the next thing I know, it’s morning!

So that’s it! Not so glamorous… certainly very busy, but you know, it’s fun and exciting and while it is becoming clearer and clearer that this is no longer a one-person job, I still feel very lucky to be living this life. No day is ever the same – there are always surprises, disappointments and thrills; often all three in the same day. There’s so much to love about what I’m doing but I must admit that every day feels like a race. An ideal day for me is when I have no appointments and I can just sit down and crack on with blogging!