A day in the life of a grad student with a day job (me)

Every day is different because I'm Depressed and Lethargic, but here's a little look at an ~ideal~ day in my life, as a grad student with a day job.

My alarm goes off at 6:50 a.m., and though I used to wake up right then, just jump out of bed ready to greet the day, of late I've been snoozing for anywhere from one to three hours.

But let's say I make it out of bed by 8 a.m. (a good day). Then I'll curl up on the couch with a fresh espresso made in my Moka — and yes I am insufferable about it because it's one of very few things I have from Italy LET ME HAVE THIS — and read my newsy newsletters: I start the day with four, including theskimm and Morning Brew.

After some time catching up on the day's news, I'll journal for a bit (an important part of my routine!), then I'll shower or eat breakfast or lounge about and stare sorrowfully at the ceiling. Eventually I start work!

I work for a few hours in the morning, then take an extended lunch break during which I eat and watch BookTube videos, and then do something like freelance work for one of my other jobs; read articles or go through emails; scroll through Twitter until the serotonin fades and it's nothing but doomscrolling...you know, all fun things!

I go back to work for my afternoon hours and usually wrap up by 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m. at the latest. Today I'm sitting at a coffee shop near my house doing my afternoon work, which is something I want to start doing more often because I'm an extrovert and I need to be around other people, and also I have gotten so bored of my house lately...

After work I take a break for a few hours to eat dinner; sometimes I do other jobs in that time, maybe I'll think about cleaning the house (but realistically that's about as far as it ever gets...) and by 7 p.m. I'm ready to dive into the second big commitment of my life: grad school.

Because I'm in a low-residency program, I don't have classes or workshops to attend outside of the 10-day residency that kicks off the semester. I do have a commitment to putting in at least 25 hours of schoolwork every week, and I do that by devoting three hours of my weekdays to school. I start by reading a book for 40 minutes (I have to read at least 8 books per packet/month, and I read two books at a time, alternating one with the other every 40 minutes), then I take some notes on my reading and store them in my Notion reading journal. I'll switch to 30 minutes of writing work, which can be anything from actively drafting a creative project to brainstorming one of my critical essays.

And then I just do that again! Read, then write. That's how I put in my three hours on the weekdays.

Once I've finished up schoolwork for the day, I'm exhausted — let's be real, I start getting exhausted around 6:15 p.m. and every day that I don't nap from then until bedtime is kind of a miracle, but again, we're best case scenario'ing here!

I am in bed between 10-11 p.m. (sometimes even earlier, lol) and then I do it all over again the next day.

So there you have it — a day in my life! Thanks to Christine over at Paw Prints in the Sink for suggesting this blog post when I texted her in a panic needing content ideas ;)