A typical(ish) Monday to Friday
Documenting a working week
Hi friends,
How are you doing? It’s been a while since I wrote here on Substack. Honestly, every time I’ve sat down to write I’ve drawn a blank on what to say.
I’m very much in a stage of life where I’m ‘in it’, if that makes sense. I’m in the doing, not the reflecting.
I did, however, read another of Emma Gannon’s weekly diaries and I thought - hmm, I could do that. I did a week off journal last year, and thought perhaps I could do a week ‘on’ journal, sharing a week in my work life.
I love this kind of content when you get a peek into someone else’s world, so perhaps you’ll enjoy it too.
A little context
I documented this past week, the week starting Monday 3rd November.
I work full-time hours, but compressed into four days, so usually that means 8:30 - 6, Monday to Thursday.
My job is brand and integrity manager at Happiful (a company that runs various mental health and wellbeing online directories, like Counselling Directory).
OK, let’s get into it.
Monday
My alarm tears me away from an intense dream. After battling the snooze button I wake up and scroll on my phone (reading substacks rather than social media - that’s something, right?).
It takes me about an hour to actually rise from bed and start my day, giving me approx. 30 mins to shower, get dressed, throw some breakfast in a bowl and power up my laptop.
Sat at my desk I eat breakfast while catching up with any Slack messages and emails from Friday. Then I head into the various Facebook communities we run for the professionals who use our platform to market their services.
Myself and a couple of colleagues are covering this task for a colleague on maternity leave, and it generally involves approving posts, approving member requests and moderating comments.
Once these are all checked, a few hours have flown by so I get up for a quick walking pad break and to wash up the dishes from breakfast.
Settling back at my desk, a colleague needs some of her work proof-read, so I do this before adding a task to my list my manager asked for, putting in the details of what needs doing and figuring out when I can do it over the next few weeks.
Before I know it, it’s lunchtime. Our food shop delivery is coming this evening and that means we have nothing in for lunch, so I head to our local shop and pick up some soup and bread.
After lunch there is a little commotion in one of the Facebook groups as a debate starts going off the rails, so myself and some colleagues chat about how best to handle it.
Once that’s sorted, I pull up a new document and create an agenda for a meeting I have on Wednesday with the internal wellness team I head up. I then get to some policy work.
A large part of my job involves reviewing and updating our policies on the directories, especially our ‘proof policy’ which dictates the criteria we have for professionals to advertise with us (we keep a high standard, so the public feels safe and assured when searching for a professional).
Today I need to action some decisions we made in our latest policy review, which means making changes to our system to reflect any changes. I get through most of it, but the two more complex/brain-heavy jobs I decide to push to tomorrow.
I get up for another quick walking pad break and grab a snack to power me through the last couple hours of the day. I return to more proof-reading work and more Facebook group checks.
Our social media coordinator then noticed a technical issue which meant over 300 posts had been scheduled on our social channels by mistake. We talk about potential solutions and decide to pick it up tomorrow as it’s the end of the working day for most of the team.
I give my neglected inbox a look-through and sort, before filling in our monthly ‘recognition’ form (where we recognise our colleagues for being awesome!). I then realise I’ve worked 30-minutes past the end of my day, so log off.
I won’t lie, I have quite the headache by this point - but a quick 20-minute cardio workout sorts me out. I then shower, wash my hair and get my PJs on while Dan preps dinner. I take over to do the cooking and we eat together.
I get some pudding and enjoy this while watching Stranger Things (I’m doing a re-watch before season 5 starts). The food shop rudely interrupts, but I get up to help Dan unpack it.
Soon enough it’s time for bed. I finish reading my current book, Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood, and fall asleep quickly.
Tuesday
I start the day having my usual dance with the alarm, but feel less groggy than yesterday. I’m also relishing starting the week with two work-from-home days as I know I’ve got early starts tomorrow and Thursday.
When I get to my desk, I check emails and do the Facebook group admin (I’m covering Mondays and Tuesdays, other colleagues take the rest of the week).
I then return to the social media issue with our social media coordinator, and realise we have no choice but to manually check each post and delete the ones that were scheduled in error.
I stay glued to my desk to get through as much of this as possible before lunch. For lunch, I head out for a quick walk and finish the soup and bread I picked up yesterday.
After the break, I come back to the social media debacle, finally getting things wrapped up by 3pm. I celebrate with a cup of tea and snacks.
Now that’s all sorted I return to those two policy tasks from yesterday. They involve emailing professional bodies (one counselling body, one nutritionist body) and setting tasks for our engineering team to make some changes to our registration forms on the directories.
I move over to the sofa for the last few tasks on my to-do list: writing up my section of our team’s monthly report (where we share highlights and challenges from the previous month), some proof-reading work, final Facebook groups checks and an inbox sort.
Logging off for the day, I pull up Google Maps on my phone and start frantically looking at the route I need to drive tomorrow. We have a ‘company day’ (where we all get together for a quarterly update and co-working) but it’s off-site, meaning we head to a fancy venue.
I’m terrified of the drive (hello, driving anxiety), but determined to do it.
I get up from my anxiety spiral to prep dinner and, while Dan cooks, I pick out my outfit for tomorrow and pack my work bag.
I eat dinner while watching the Bake Off final, before washing up and doing some more compulsive route checking on maps. I force myself to bed, and start reading a new book, The Overstory by Richard Powers, before trying to fall asleep.
Wednesday
I wake up an hour before my already very early alarm, meaning I got about 4.5 hours sleep. Not ideal, but I try to rest in bed and read for a bit before my alarm finally nudges me out of bed.
I get up and ready, and decide to leave earlier than planned to try and beat the traffic. I make it to the venue in one piece! I did miss one turning… but thankfully found a place to turn around.
The very lovely venue greeted us with coffee and pastries while colleagues started arriving. The update presentation kicked off at 9am and I get up towards the end to present my slides about the wellness work from the last quarter.
After the update I have a meeting with the wellness team. We talk through what we want to do over the next couple of months and make some plans. I then have a catch-up with our office and culture manager about team training we’d like to arrange for 2026.
Suddenly, it’s time for lunch and we are served a lovely meal of harissa chicken and halloumi with grains and salad, followed by ice cream.
I then have a meeting with a new starter, who joined the company on Monday. In this meeting I share more about what integrity means to us as a company, what my role involves and talk through some resources we have.
Once this is wrapped up, I’m whisked away for a back and neck massage. The company arranged for some of our holistic practitioners from our Therapy Directory to provide massages and I was very pleased to have secured a slot. It felt dreamy and very needed.
After the massage I get some laptop time in, mostly writing up notes from meetings and sending over the resources to the new starter.
I decide to drive home at 4ish to, again, beat some traffic and get away in the daylight. I manage to go wrong again on the drive home, but thankfully a roundabout gets me back on track.
I get home and set myself up on the sofa for the last hour, mostly catching up with emails and re-jigging my workload as this week has not quite gone to plan.
It’s time to log off and I immediately get into my PJs. Dan is kindly sorting dinner, and while he does that I put away some clean washing and pick out my outfit for tomorrow.
Tiredness hits while eating dinner, so I get into bed straight away once we’re done, watching an episode of Stranger Things and getting an early night.
Thursday
Surprisingly, I struggled to sleep last night (perhaps adrenaline is still surging through me) so I wake up with tired eyes and a heavy head. I get ready in good time though, and make my way to the office (Thursdays are our team day in the office).
I get in, catch up with colleagues and check my inbox. I then share a new resource I made for new starters with managers to get their sign-off before sharing more widely.
At 9:30 myself and a colleague take a call from a coaching professional body that requires some follow-up communication with staff and updates within our system.
When that’s all done, I jump in to help another colleague who edits and publishes articles written by the professionals we list on the directories. The day off-site yesterday meant she couldn’t do her usual work, so I lend a hand editing and publishing some bits to help get her back on track.
I do this up until lunch, when we head to the local shop to pick up lunch and then eat back at the office and chat.
After lunch, a colleague needs some work proof-read and another colleague needs a hand with a difficult social media message.
We then have our ‘meet the team’ meeting with our new starter, where our manager talks about what we do as a team and we share more about individual roles.
After this we dive straight into another meeting, this one is our usual weekly team meeting where we share what we’ve done this week, any updates and any support needed.
Once we finish up, I drive home to finish the work day there (this is because I have Pilates class on Thursday evenings, so I like to be home so I can get ready in time!).
From the sofa I update a web page about our policy, following the changes made earlier this week and proof-read some copy that will be going on our ‘join us’ page.
I schedule a meeting regarding a(nother) new resource we want to make for new starters, following chats with our new starter this week.
I then pop my ‘out of office’ on and log off, sprinting to Pilates as I’m running late. I make it on time and have a good session, even though I can feel the tiredness seeping through my pores.
When I get home, Dan is on top of dinner so while he cooks I call my sister for a chat then shower and get my PJs on.
We eat together, I watch another episode of Stranger things then fall immediately to sleep.
Friday
After 8.5 hours of sleep I wake up with (somehow) still-tired eyes and a hazy head, something that has become a bit of a normality. I stay in bed and read substacks for a good while. I then peel myself away from the duvet to make breakfast before bringing it back to eat in bed.
I eventually get up and ready for the day and do a quick bedroom tidy. I head out in the rain with my Kindle and sit in my local coffee shop to read.
I head home and start getting ready for a talk I’m giving to medical students as part of my volunteer work with Beat. I go through my notes, set up my laptop and grab a drink.
The session lasts around two hours, including a talk, answering questions and joining in a roleplay exercise.
Once that’s done I make myself a late lunch and watch some YouTube. Tiredness kicks in again and I fall asleep for a couple of hours. When I wake up, I play some Sims until dinner time.
Dinner tonight is frozen pizza, and while that’s in the oven, Dan and I chat to his sister and niece. We eat together then I do my usual pudding + Stranger Things routine before heading to bed.
This wasn’t a super typical working week in the end - it became quite a ‘fire-fightery’ type week with lots of unplanned things needing my attention, but the important things got done and I’m glad I was able to support my colleagues.
I’m writing this on Saturday afternoon and I’m still a bit knackered in all honesty, but having a three day weekend does give me time to reboot so I know I’ll be ready and raring to go again on Monday.
I hope this was somewhat interesting and I’d love to know what your Monday-Friday looks like, let me know in the comments!
I’ll be back soon, either with more documenting or perhaps musings as we reach the end of the year.
Until then, take care.
Kat x
What a fascinating insight into your weekly routine. I should already know this - I am your Dad after all! Next time somebody asks me 'what's Kat doing these days?' I'll be able to give a comprehensive answer, confident in the fact that I now know some of those small things that I didn't know I didn't know, if you know what I mean ...