Beyond Selidor

I've been promising to do a Day in the Life post for most of the pandemic, but what finally prompted me to do so was the prospect of life — as I've known it since March 2020 — being on the verge of changing a bit. Yesterday, I had a meeting with my two managers, where they told me that I would begin a partial return to the office in July. So far it's only going to be one day a week.

Therefore, I felt I needed to record an average working-from-home-in-lockdown day for posterity.

The post is text only, but I've been doing a parallel photo post over on Instagram, and I've saved the whole lot as a Highlight, but I'm not sure people without Instagram accounts will be able to view it.


6.30am: My alarm goes off, but I've been lying awake for around an hour or so, listening to the birdsong. I scroll briefly through my phone for a bit, before getting out of bed and grabbing a glass of water.

6.45am: I'm off for a run. It rained overnight, and everything is clear and cool, which is bliss after several days running in the sticky heat.

7.30am: Time for a shower, and to get dressed and ready.

8.00am: I head out down the road to the bakery to buy fresh bread, and pick up a coffee at the same time.

8.30am: I switch on the computer to start work. Back when I worked in the library/office, my official starting time was 9.30am, but I am a morning person, and with the greater control over my time and work schedule that working from home affords, I have totally reoriented my working day so that the bulk of my work is done before lunchtime. Some days I start work at 8am, or even 7.30am, but today I'm running a bit behind.

The first hour of the working day is devoted to emails, Teams messages, and general calendar-checking, interspersed with drying and straightening my hair and so on. As I say, a slightly late start to the day!

10.00am: The first Teams meeting of the day. I'm about to go on leave for a few weeks, and my colleague (who does the same job as me) want to be sure we're on the same page in terms of various shared projects and working groups we're involved in.

10.50am: Wrist and neck exercises while brewing tea and coffee. I get lots of aches and pains from using a computer. Using a standing desk makes a big difference, but it's not perfect, so I need to do these exercises regularly to avoid severe hand/wrist/neck/shoulder pain.

11.00am: Coffee with Matthias, watching the rain fall on the fruit trees.

11.30am: Back to work. I'm writing and sending various newsletters to advertise upcoming training sessions that we'll be teaching. I follow this with a little bit of prep for the class I'm teaching later today. I've taught the class many times, so it's mostly a case of refreshing my memory.

12.50pm: It's time for today's cleaning tasks as per my cleaning schedule (which is divided into daily, fortnightly and monthly tasks). Today's daily tasks are to wet-dust the hard surfaces in the kitchen, and vacuum and mop the upstairs bathroom. However, I already did the latter earlier this week in a burst of energy, so it's a bit less work than expected.

1.20pm: Lunch. It's last night's leftovers — spiced bean and vegetable stew. I read a bit of my book — For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten — while eating.

2.00pm: It's time to teach my class via Zoom. The class is on critical reading of scientific publications. Attendees had to read an article in advance, then we use a specific evaluation tool to critique, with discussion posted as comments on a Padlet board.

3.30pm: More wrist and neck stretches.

4.00pm: The last meeting of the day, just a quick catch up with my line manager via Teams.

4.30pm: Yoga time — a stretchy, relaxing class today.

5.00pm: I switch off my work computer, then spend a little bit of time filling in the habit tracker on my bullet journal and winding down.

5.20pm: I go downstairs. Matthias is watching football, and I disappear into Dreamwidth, catching up on comments and so on.

6.30pm: Dinner. We wouldn't normally eat takeaway on a week night, but we wanted to try the new Thai place in town. We expected the delivery to arrive at 7pm, but it arrived much earlier. This therefore left time for...

7.00pm: Watching the second episode of Loki with Matthias. I haven't quite worked out how I feel about the show, although it's partly coloured by how deeply I loved Thor: Ragnarok.

8.00pm: I watch an online author 'salon' with Malka Older, Annalee Newitz, Arkady Martine, Amal El-Mohtar, Karen Lord and Katie Mack. It ranges in topic from climate change, bureaucracy, regulation, the internet, privacy, and more. I could watch many of these people just read the phone book, so listening to them just revel in each other's words was wonderful (and honestly, what Amal El-Mohtar says around 30-32 minutes in just crystalised a lot of things that I've long been feeling and had never been able to articulate).

(If you want to watch the salon, it's here.)

9.15pm: The panel is finished, and the day is winding down for me. I'm going to drink a glass of wine, and read a bit more of my book, before heading to bed.