Hustle culture, especially on my LinkedIn feed, has always annoyed me a bit. It especially does now.

Seeing the hustle culture’s approach to quarantine in the age of coronavirus sometimes makes me want to throw my computer across the room. But I don’t because A) that’s excessive B) not really my style anyway and C) it’s my work computer and I’m thankful that I’m still getting a paycheck during shelter in place so I don’t plan on messing that up.

I keep seeing posts about how we should be using this extra time.

• How Issac Newton invented calculus during a pandemic in his lifetime.

• That we should be sharpening skills, reading those books that we always meant to coming up with ways to not waste this time.

• I’ve been told that this should be a time of self-reflection and personal growth.

I realize that this is a reality felt by a lot of folks. Quarantine has given a good chunk of the population downtime that they hadn’t previously had.

That’s just not the reality that we are facing at home right now.

For the Hawkins house, this hasn’t been a time to take advantage and get ahead. Most days it’s about treading water - and treading water is a huge victory. I know we aren’t alone. Parents with kids are all feeling the pinch right now. This is hands-down the busiest Megan and I have been in our married lives.

Our Weekday Schedules

5am - 7am: Work before the kids wake up

This ends at 7am in a best-case scenario. The work time really ends when our three-year-old comes up to our room. She honestly comes up around 6:30 to jump in our bed and snuggle. It’s a time we have mixed feelings about. We love the extra snuggle time with our first born that we normally wouldn’t get. At the same time, that extra 30 minutes of quiet work can be a game changer that sets the tone for the rest of the day. This isn’t “get ahead” time as much as it is “catch up.”

7am -9am: “Work” while making the kids’ breakfast and/or exercise

Megan and I alternate mornings on who gets to go for a morning run and who does the kids’ morning routines. Exercise is crucial for both our physical and mental health. During this time, one of us gets breakfast together for the kids and likely has a laptop opening trying to tie up loose ends on actual work before meetings and calls start.

9am-12pm: Take turns working/watching the kids

We’ve recently found that the secret to our success in the mornings is keeping the kids separated. Megan and Campbell hang out in our kitchen while our one-year-old son and I head to the basement for work/play. If he is occupied (read: “tearing up some boxes, throwing toys everywhere or dumping the dog’s food all over the floor”) I can get my laptop out. Most of the time it’s me taking about 10 tries to finish one two sentence email. Both kids have made multiple appearances on calls.

12-12:30: Lunch/Emails/Octonauts

Meg and I whip up some lunch, put our one year old to bed and let our daughter watch Octonauts on a Kindle until it’s time for her nap.

12:30-3ish: Actual focus work time

Again, the 3pm end time is an optimistic best-case-scenario kind of thing. This is the time where we get more quiet work in and where we try to schedule calls that require all of our attention (e.g., presentations, 1:1s, etc).

3-7: Pure chaos where time doesn’t exist (to an even greater extent than normal)

I’m not sure what happens during this time. It’s usually a combo of trying to tag in and out between calls and the kids. Fortunately the weather has been nice and we use this time to burn the kids’ energy by taking walks on a nature trail in the woods behind our house. I take my phone with me and handle one-offs as I’m able while they pile sticks in the woods and “hunt for bears.” Also in this time is the kids’ nightly witching hour where they go completely insane, we somehow feed them dinner and bathe them.

7-8: Dinner

We eat. This is usually time where Megan and I catch up on each others’ days. At least under normal circumstances. However, these aren’t normal times and we usually sit in silence just eating because we’re tired and our brains are mush.

8-9:30 Work

Kids are down. There aren’t meetings during this time. So we take advantage and do real work that we couldn’t knock out. We typically try to save more menial/admin tasks for this time because our brains are too tired to successfully execute deep thinking work.

9:30-10pm: Read in bed and go to sleep

Oh yeah, we sold our house during all this

Up until about a week ago, we were also in the middle of selling our house. That meant getting booted out of our house with short notice for showings, inspections and appraisals. Getting booted out of the house with no place to really go. Those were times when we’d kill time any which was we could either sitting in the Chick-fil-A curbside service or playing in a large empty lot about half mile from our home.

Keeping your house clean with kids is always hard. Keeping it clean enough for potential buyers is harder. Having to get your kids out of the house for 1-3 hours at a time with nowhere to really take them is a challenge - especially when you still have work calls, meetings and deadlines that don’t play by the same schedule as your personal life. I’ve presented web projects more than once from memory driving around with my kids and dog in the backseat.

…but we’re okay

But we are making it. Megan and I both know how fortunate we are to both have jobs we can do from home. We are spending more time with our kids. We go on impromptu trail walks with them. Our patience has grown both with the kids and each other. Megan and I are both really tired but feel like we finally have a rhythm. This is only temporary. Sometimes temporary takes longer than we want.

I recently did this podcast interview walking through what work/life looks like with two toddlers. You can check it out below!

How has quarantine impacted your routine?

Do you have more time and find yourself somewhere between bored and refreshed?

Or did someone just turn up the speed on your treadmill and you’re praying for the day Dr. Fauci lets you slow back down?