Hi I’m Bianca Johnson – wife, mother and owner of WAHM WorkSpace. I’d love to give you a window into my day to day work life balance, or lack thereof.
Morning Routine
It’s winter now so my kids wake me up between 06:15 and 06:45. In Summer they can be awake as early at 04:30! Once they’re awake my amazing husband brings me my black coffee in bed. I struggle to get going before I’ve had that cup of coffee.
Depending on the day I then head to the shower or get ready for gym. I started training with a personal trainer at the beginning of 2019, and it’s been really amazing. It’s definitely hard work, especially on the chilly mornings, to get out in time.
On gym days I head out to gym with a banana to fuel me and a bottle of water. I do a 1,5 hour workout with my trainer and then head home. When I get home it’s into the shower and the rest of the day is pretty much the same.
After my shower I grab breakfast and more coffee and head into my home office. My office is in our granny flat. So I’m on my home property, but in a separate area from my main home. Which is good since with 2 kids at home all day, if I were easier to reach I’d never get anything done.
My Work Day
Working on WAHM WorkSpace
I try spend the first 30-60 minutes of my day doing work ON my business. Marketing stuff, blog post creation, social media, admin etc.
Client Work
First I log onto Client Blue‘s email and sort through the inbox. She’s a web designer and has taught me a lot about getting design right! This involves complete any tasks I can, typing replies from voice notes and updating her to-do list in Trello. This can take anything from 10 minutes to 2 hours. She is on a 12 hour Like monthly retainer which works out to half an hour a day, plus an extra half hour a week.
Client Green offers garden services. He will probably have sent a request for invoices to be created or followed up on, a new contract that needs to be sent or other basic admin needs. So I’ll hop across and do that. I probably spend about half an hour a day on Client Green. He only uses about 5 hours a month in total.
Client Gold is a business coaching with both 1:1 coaching and an online membership site. She has quite a bit of admin related to her online course and website. Work for her includes uploading new videos to her membership site, updating her testimonials, changing any copy as required, designing Canva graphics, updating blog posts and doing the SEO on the post. I also assist her with invoicing and financial tasks. On-boarding new client also falls into my role. I’ll probably spend half an hour to 3 hours on her projects depending on what’s going on in her business. Client Gold buys between 12 and 40 hours per month with me.
Everything Else
Often this isn’t all streamlined, and there’s a lot of chopping and changing from one client to the other. Thank heavens for my amazing time keeping app – Timing. This app helps me keep track of what I’ve worked on when, and then lets me assign all the hours worked to the appropriate client.
At some point my 5 year old will probably come and interrupt me and want to get something to colour or just to have chat. We plan on homeschooling both our children, so in the next year I will be adding scheduled work time for him. And about 3 years from now his sister will join him. Lets hope I’ve streamlined my business a little more by then!
I try each day to spend some time working on my passion projects – Best Face Forward and The Baby Bryce Foundation. Depending on the client load this isn’t always possible.
Mommy Time
My nanny finishes work at 16:00 and I take over from her looking after my kids. I need to get dinner ready for them and for my husband and I. They get dinner at 17:30, head to the bath around 18:15. My husband gets home from his job around 1845 and we split up to get the kids out the bath, dressed and into bed asleep. Around 20:00 we eat dinner and try relax with a little TV.
I’m usually in bed by 22:00 and then we start all over again!
Non-Typical Days
I hope for my days to be as predictable as above, but there are so many other things that get added to the regular day to day things. Some days it’s extra work related bits – networking events, client meetings, and training sessions add into the mix!
During Summer the kids have swim lessons twice a week. And because I work from home, I get to do most of the grocery shopping, car repairs, errand running and doctors appointment.
There’s also the personal things that need to slot in as well – therapy, support group meetings, optometrist, dentist, meeting friends and beauty treatments (when I manage to get a chance).
But this is what I chose! I love having a certain amount of flexibility in my schedule. I love that I’m here for my kids when they need me, without having to ask someone for permission to do what’s needed of me! And for those impromptu afternoons on the beach because it’s such a beautiful day!
