If you are someone who feels like they’ve achieved work/life balance, please for the love of gawd share what that looks like and how awesome your life is. Seriously, I need those vibes.

I was listening to a podcast ‘The Wealthy Web Designer,’ here’s the episode link and this chick, Becca Luna brought this concept of splitting her days into thirds: work, life, and the purposeful blending of work/life (an example for me might be replying emails casually while at the park while my kid plays). 

And you know when you hear a new phrase, and you just instantly understand the entire concept? ‘Plant-forward’ was another for me, where when I heard it just summed up so many questions I have in my head of who I am as an eater, and for me it was like ‘Oh, I’m someone who starts who starts with the assumption that I’m going to eat plants, and if the vehicle to eat those plants has a animal product, I’m okay with that, but my preference is plants. It’s the ‘mostly vegetarian’ diet.

Anywho, back on track. When I heard about the concept of making space for time when your focus is split or it’s not purely work, or purely life, I realized it was those moments where I felt a level of peak happiness, joy, and flow. Like having coffee with a client, we’re getting work done, but we’re also sharing a moment as humans about something that matters to us, and it’s so enjoyable for me. It’s also about the pace, letting life happen and fitting in moments of work.

So, the rule of thirds for your day, is partial self-awareness on the types of energy patterns and optimal types of performance you throughout a day, your schedule, and being intentional with your time.

Before diving into your ideal day, I really want to map out personal examples of activities in each of the thirds, my schedule for the pace of life I’m in, and add an evening and morning routine which is something that has been extremely meaningful to me.

Work

• Focused work, sitting with headphones or lo-fi music and getting task complete
• Planning, mapping out what something can be in the future, research, sketching, making content
• Meetings

Life

• Being with my family
• Moving outdoors
• Working out indoors
• Going to events
• Traveling
• Entertaining
• Interacting with friends
• Cooking / Cleaning Domestic Stuff
• Knitting and listening to podcasts
• Playing my phone game
• Reading

Work/Life

• Creating content
• Drawing on my iPad while my preschooler is playing at a kids space
• Social time with other business people
• Networking & Professional events
• Being Coached
• Therapy

Now, I have a good idea of what kind of activities I enjoy, I’m going to build my schedule with a 1-hour life buffer in the evening and the morning. I start with evening, because it’s truly the secret to an ideal morning.

I wake up at 5am everyday. Weekends, holidays, and all days in-between. It’s what works best for always being a morning person. It’s early enough where I mostly get a good amount of alone time when I need to work, and it’s not difficult for me to do.

When I take my 7 hours of sleep out of a 24 hour day, I’m left with 17 hours. Divided by 3 is 5 hours and 40 minutes. Or, 5 + 5 + 5 + 2 (buffer routine), and I think I’ll give the extra hour to the life category.

10pm – 5am	sleeping
5am	Morning routine (life)
6am	Work
7am	Work
8am	Breakfast / Hygiene/ cleaning / Home stuff (life)
9am	Work
10am	Work
11am	Work
12pm	Lunch (life)
1pm	Rest / reset (life)
2pm	Activity – checking in at work or thinking about a creative project (work/life)
3pm	Activity – checking in at work or thinking about a creative project (work/life)
4pm	Activity – checking in at work or thinking about a creative project (work/life)
5pm	Activity – checking in at work or thinking about a creative project (work/life)
6pm	Dinner (life)
7pm	Activity – checking in at work or thinking about a creative project (work/life)
8pm	Life
9pm	Evening Routine (life)
10pm	sleeping

Here it is with all the color mapping:

I love this outline so much, I can’t wait to get started!

Oh and to define my evening and morning routine. I like a checklist.

Evening routine:

• Plan for the next day
• Shutdown work
• Stretch
• Close down home with small chores, tidy
• Hygiene

Morning routine:

(I prefer to do my hygiene after breakfast)

• Drink water
• ADHD meds
• Make coffee
• Empty dishwasher
• Make bread
• Sit on couch and listen to podcasts and play my phone game