A Day In The Life Of
One of my favorite creative / techonolgy magazines is Offscreen. They have a feature that I've seen in every issue called A Day In The Life Of.
It's a collection of several featured artists that describes what a typical day looks like for them. The artists aren't necessarily popular or famous, although some of them do work at high profile companies (Google, Facebook, etc), but for some reason I find it really interesting to read through. It must also be interesting for others too since it continues to be in the magazine.
So here, I'm officially submitting my chronicle: A day in the life of Jess Brown
Jess Brown
Independent Web Developer, Monroe, GA
6.00AM -- Things start early here. But, first things first...my wife is nudging me out of the bed to start coffee.
6.15AM -- I work from home, so a quick walk up the stairs to my office places me at my desk. I lead a Bible study group once a week, so I begin the day in prayer, thought, and then begin preparation for the next lesson.
6.45AM -- I check my email, calendar and moleskin to review the tasks/projects for the day. I typically come up with an idea of when and how I'll work on each project.
7.00AM -- Time to wake the kids up for school. I have a 3 and 7 year old. I get them dressed and fed while mom gets herself ready.
8.00AM -- Mom and kids head off to school, while I head out on my bike. Today I have planned what's usually a typical ride of around 2hrs. Exercise is an important part of starting the day off right for me.
10.15AM -- After a shower and a small snack, I'm back at my desk tackling the plan I laid out earlier that morning. Today I'm monitoring the relaunch of a client's app. They provide exercise programs for university courses, and since most universities are on semester systems, 30-40% of annual sales will come in this week. We just upgraded to a new server environment, so everyone is anxious to see how it handles the rush.
1.00PM -- Aside from a few little tweaks, the new servers are handling the load just fine. Since things seem under control, I'll grab a bite to eat with my wife downstairs. We're pretty health conscious about what we eat, so we end up cooking quite a bit, which means leftovers are usually the only item on the menu.
1.30PM -- I'm back at my desk and am on a conference call with my client. We discuss how things are progressing and discuss a few features to implement that could make ordering a little easier for students. I also work on set of other features that have been scheduled to be integrated in the application.
3.30PM -- Time for an afternoon coffee break. Today I'll use my AreoPress and try out a new recipe I found. While I'm brewing, my kids get home from school so I get to give them hugs and chat with them a few minutes before heading back to my office with coffee.
3.45PM -- I like to use my coffee time to either learn something new (reading a book or article, following a tutorial, etc) or writing. Today I'll be writing on my blog. Writing, and especially teaching through writing is really rewarding.
4.15PM -- Back to finish up the latter part of the workday. I'm completing a few features I started earlier and after all my tests show passing, I deploy to production.
6.00PM -- I head down stairs to start dinner. There are no church or school meetings or meetups tonight, so I get to relax spending time with my family. Cooking, cleanup, and getting the kids in and out of showers take up the bulk of the evening (kids are hard work :).
8.30PM -- We have story time every night with the kids. Right now, we're reading our second Sammy Keys book called Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief. The adults even like this one!
9.00PM -- It's lights out for the kids. I sit in my older son's room while my wife is in the other. I have my laptop out, quietly checking email and studying up on a new project.
9.30PM -- My wife and I get to spend a little time to ourselves. Tonight we're watching TV and we're currently in the middle of a really good Netflix series called The Killing.
10.30PM -- We're heading to bed and I wind down by reading a fiction novel I'm about halfway through called Battlefield Earth (it's much better than the movie).
11.00PM -- ZZZ