How to fit in more me time around a 9-5 job?

[Workingmum85]

Hey, I am after any tips you may have to help inject some me time in around my 9-5. For context, i am a mum of 2 primary school aged kids and I work 37.5 hours and am solely office based.

Last year I was in a 35 hour week flexi, remote position and worked a condensed 9 day fortnight until my redundancy which is why I think I find my current set up exhausting. Below is my typical day mon-fri, any suggestions on how to carve some time for me would be appreciated

5:45 get up and do 15 minute YouTube strength training
6:15 30 minute dog walk
6:45 feed dog, make coffee, pack up kids bags and get kids breakfast
7:15 drink coffee and get myself ready
8:10 leave house (husband does school run)
9 start work
lunch time: 30 minute walk around business park
6 get home, make dinner, eat dinner
7 tidy kitchen, make packed lunches and sort stuff for following day (husband does bedtime)
8-9 this is “my” time where I try and read but usually fall asleep

I do try and get one run in at least one night and one night I ferry the kids swimming and one night I do housework

weekends are better, I do park run and spend time with my family etc but Monday to Friday is a bit work, eat, sleep, repeat. After I’ve been in my role 18 months I plan to look for something more remote/flexible but in the meantime, any words of wisdom?

I do think some of this is just life, young kids, full time job, dog and a house - weekdays will be hectic. I find it helps to remember that in 15 years time, it'll be quieter and you'll miss the mess and busy-ness!

I'd also build stuff in to life where you can, audio books or podcasts for the walk and the commute, making a really nice coffee for the car journey, take a book for your lunch break. Maybe one or two days a week you could not do as much exercise (unless that feels like "me" time) because 2 walks a day, a couple of runs a week plus daily strength training every day is great - if health is your focus, but if relaxation is your focus then you could change your routine to fit in 20 mins reading or meditation or a netflix show in that early morning slot instead. I don't get anywhere near as much exercise as you (I'm definitely not as fit as you!) but do get more "chill" time. If it is feeling unbalanced swap some of it out (could the dog run with you when you go out in the morning to tick 2 boxes in one go? Then have your coffee in bed with a book for the 20 mins spare)

This might not be possible as I appreciate there is a cost, but is there stuff you can outsource? A cleaner, school dinners not lunchboxes, a dog walker once a week, a takeaway weekly or meals like Stocked so no cooking or clearing really? That would then open up some time potentially too.

Don't beat yourself up though, life with kids and a job is super busy, and it won't be like that forever Plus I think you're squeezing in loads for your body/health. If it really becomes too much, could you look at a role that gives a bit of wfh time or slightly part time or would your current role have any flex for that (when i worked ft my role was truly ft but I negotiated an early finish on Fridays and work were happy with that even though it wasnt an "offer")

you get more “me” time than any primary-aged-kids mum I know.. combined!! Not sure how you aren’t seeing this??

why is your job 5 days in the office? That’s a dealbreaker for me. Can you negotiate 4 days in?

wow, your poor kids.
i get the kids up sort the dog etc, we all leave at 8.15, I get home at 5.45pm and my kids are with my mum at home. As soon as I get in, the time is for my kids, whether it’s homework, ferrying to sports, Lego or just chilling. Some nights sports don’t finish til 9 then it’s shower and I dry kids hair.
my time is when I’m in bed and half an hour at lunch time, when I tend to call my son as he gets back from his AP at 1.30pm.

forget the kitchen, get involved in bedtime!

The thing that stood out from your OP is that if you get a mini-strength workout plus a dog walk each morning & don’t have to do the school run plus do ParkRun at the weekends you are doing pretty well for a parent of 2 primary aged kids!

Realistically I’d look for a WFH job if you are someone who likes a lot of “me time” and has young kids.

Are you serious? You do park run, have time with family, have time to read, go on lovely dog walks. Me time? What is this ridiculous thing that Mums these days are asking. You chose to have kids. Your husband does school run and bedtimes. You have a perfectly normal family life with a healthy balance. Me time. Get a grip

I thought this! How much more ‘me time’ does the woman want!!!

Bollocks. I work in a primary school and there are plenty of mums (and dads) who pick up at 3.15pm.

It’s not low at all, OP gets a morning strength and conditioning workout and a walk, another walk at lunch, a walk one evening a week and an hour from 8-9. And then a parkrun at the weekend.
Now she also wants to indulge reading a book, watching a good Netflix series or seeing friends on top of that!? Meanwhile I’m wondering do her children even get to actually BE with her.
why can she not read a book for a half hour one or two lunch breaks instead of a run! Why can she not meet a friend instead of the parkrun one weekend? The answer is because she prioritises working out…which is fine but you can’t have it every way!

Yeah I do.

Having worked 7-3, and then the period after 3:15 is evidently not “me time.”

Unfortunately I think a good chunk of your ‘me time’ is taken up by your choice to get a dog. Crazy when you’re both working full time. This is why you have to get up so early and are tired early in the evenings.

Maybe you could try batch cooking so that you’re not having to cook every night, and some nights you can just heat up?

I've got to agree that you sound like you have a lot of me time.
I dont work full time and still don't get a lot of me time.
Mornings is up and get son to school, work approx 9-3, home for son coming in then it's spending time with him, making tea, clearing up, baths, he's 11 now so I could definitely leave him to it more but i dont really want to. I enjoy hearing about his day, interests, playing games etc, I doubt he will want me to do it for much longer but I'll take it while I can.

He goes to bed around 9 and I fall asleep shortly after.
It's pretty normal for week days, it's generally dedicated to school, work etc, that's why weekends are generally classed as more fun and family time...still not a lot of me time on weekends with kids though!

This might sound harsh but can you get rid of the dog? Can the kids have school dinners? Then you get 40 mins extra sleep. To get 9 hours in bed with a 5:45 wake up you would need to get to bed at 8:45 (assuming this roughly equates to 8 hours sleep). Have you thought about dropping a day, depending on pension and tax banding this sometimes has little impact on your take home pay. Unpopular opinion but i think both working full time with kids is really hard. We moved miles out of our city to a cheaper area so we could both go part time and it made a world of difference, it's amazing how different house prices can be in different suburbs. Saying that it would need a biiiig price drop for it to cancel out stamp duty

Since when is collecting your kids from school considered ‘me time’?

Yes working week with kids tends to be brutal - life is hard

in your case you are too tired - suggest get up later and spend only half an hour on your coffee and getting ready for the day rather than nearly an hour ( wtf are you doing? )

Why do you get up so early? Why do you go to bed so early? Why don’t you spend more time with your kids and husband in the evenings? Why aren’t you doing lunches before Me time didn’t seem to be a problem…what are you doing for that whole hour? Your husband sounds like a saint.

You could change their bedtime? 7 is ridiculously early

Outsource the housework - get a cleaner.

There are a couple of things going on here that I think are problematic. Your mornings are ridiculous. To get up at 5:45 when you leave at 8:10 is insane. Even with the strength training and dog walk. You need to speed some of this up.

Also, you seem to feel that because your DH does school runs, he shouldn't have to do anything else. I'm a bit confused. What time does HE get up? Becuase in this house, if one of us has to leave very early, the other one has to get up a bit earlier so that the early leaver doesn't have to do as many of the morning chores. So, yesterday, I had to leave at 7:30. DH didn't have to leave until 9. I got up at 6:30, I fed the cats, put coffee on and I got myself sorted and out the door. DH got up at 7:30 and sorted the DC's breakfast and packed lunches and took DD to school. In your household, I think a similar scenario would be that you would get up at 5:30, make packed lunches, prepare breakfast, feed cats, get yoruself ready, and then your DH would get up at 8:15 and just get dressed then take the DC to school. That's crazy.

Meanwhile, you're doing all the cooking and cleaning because apparently you're OCD? Are you really? Or do you just have perfectly reasonable standards that your DH doesn't feel he should have to meet so it's easier just to do it yourself?

You have a MASSIVE amount of "me time" every day.

You are choosing to spend it running, walking the dog, walking at lunchtime and strength training. Which is fine, if that is how you want to spend your life, fair play.
If you want to spend an evening a week doing those other things, then you create that time by dropping some of the things you already indulge in. It's not difficult when you have a standard hours job and a partner who does equal, or majority of the parenting.

Wait so OP’s husband should be doing the school runs, putting the kids to bed, making the lunches and dinner, and cleaning? Whilst OP sits in her bedroom with the door shut?

I am all for taking some me time and not forgetting our own needs as mums, but that balance is way off and quite honestly unacceptable.

If a man was sat around, whilst the woman did all of the above, everyone would be calling him lazy and useless.

This!
I think you have huge amounts of me time already to be honest, compared to most working mums!
It s about choices. In my case, I stopped morning exercise whilst my children were primary school age, because my me time was evenings after they went to bed. So I ended up going to bed quite late so couldn’t get up at the crack of dawn or would have been too tired to function. Just went for a run a couple of times a week (this includes the weekend).
It s also a choice to have a dog. So I would include walking him as me time.
And many people eat at their desk - so even the 30mns there is a luxury.

Thank you to everyone who commented and made suggestions, your feedback is much appreciated

I have chatted through with my husband and we’ve decided the best approach is to structure our evenings so we both get two evenings a week to do as we please (whether that’s meet a friend, get some exercise in etc) and alternate Saturday mornings at parkrun. I am also going to skip 2 strength workouts in the week but still get up early and just sit with a coffee and read from 5:45 to 6:15 before I walk the dog.

for those saying I don’t spend enough time with the kids, please know that we tend to keep the weekends (bar parkrun) as family time. There are plenty of family movie sessions, trips to the park, board games etc to make sure we fill our cups with family activities. I didn’t mention this in my original post as I was very much looking at my Monday to Friday time. I appreciate from your comments that I get plenty of time to myself, o just didn’t really class the exercise time as me time as I feel that’s a necessity to not turn into a potatoe and I don’t enjoy it 😂but going to reframe my thinking.

thanks again everyone for your input

All I would say is watch out that you spend enough time with your husband to maintain a relationship.
If you are each out 2 nights a week that doesn’t leave a lot of time to be together.
I would get a babysitter some times and make one of your ‘me time’ moments socialising with him (and maybe with other friends too) on a weekend evening.

@Workingmum85

Perhaps reframing it would help. I class “me time” as whenever I don’t have to do something with or for the child.

Right this second, he’s in his bedroom playing and I’m having a brew. It may be short - but this is 5mins of “me time,” until it ends and I take him to the party we’re going to.

I appreciate that way of thinking may be a “low bar” for others 😂

For me “me time” is when I can choose freely what to do with the time.

So when I’m with DC, doing my paid job, or doing housework or family admin, that is clearly not me time.

Walking a dog which I have chosen to own, or exercise is “me time”

I have other times which are “semi-me time” - for example I have an hour while DC at gymnastics, however it’s on a dingy trading estate where there is no nice coffee shop, nowhere nice to walk. So it really is a case of sit in the car or the grotty waiting room with my phone or a book. So that’s kind of me time but certainly not prime me time!