How I Do Everything I Do

The inner workings of my schedule and the tactics I employ to organise my time.

From time to time, I’ll post something off the cuff on my Instagram account and come back to a stacked inbox full of messages which keep a-coming for the next 24 hours. It’s like a personal viral moment and a very useful resource for a freelance journalist. The cycle of surging engagement can also be really random and make you question our collective sanity. When it happened this week however, it just made me think duh. Of course people would be interested in this, how the hell haven’t I ever written it before?

Aside from how I make my headboards, online and IRL the question I’m most asked is how I fit all the different things I do into my week. How Does She Do It, a 2023 book by Paris Fury, I Don’t Know How She Does It, a 2011 film starring Sarah Jessica Parker, all the way back to Helen Gurley Brown’s seminal 1982 text, Having it All…There is a cultural obsession with how women manage their lives and that of course stems from our individual struggles to keep our own bespoke versions of chaos and panic on the tracks.

I am not here to tell anyone that they should be doing what I do. This is not a self-help manual; I am no guru. I am also highly wary of sharing everything because I’m aware that it could contribute to anxiety and burnout. We all have enough on our plates without some west London wench chatting about extreme efficiency tactics. I make no bones, a lot of what I do to get there isn’t glamorous and I compromise both my physical and mental health at times. It is also highly personal, based on my own energy reserves and unique brain. There’s no doubt that my privileges (having a partner who can help with childcare especially) and my individual circumstances as a self-employed author, ghost-writer, content creator, journalist and consultant are all highly relevant. We are all wired so differently and our sectors so wildly diverse that comparison is a big fat waste of time.

On the other hand, I do think it is important to say that you don’t just fall off a log and have a career like mine. Furthermore…who am I to say that it’s fine for me but not for you? Perhaps there is one little titbit here that helps you in your chaos regulation. The challenge here is to balance transparency with a sense of responsibility. Ultimately this piece isn’t another facile ‘you can have it all’ piece, more if you are interested in how my sausage is made, stay tuned.