Okay, so today we're going to talk about an average day in the life. Yes. I went to a dinner party the other night with people who, they're friends it was our best man and his fiancé and they're both like science y people, I don't know anything about what they do and I was a little bit scared like, oh we're going to have a conversation, but I just said to, um, it was Heather and I was like, okay.

Talk me through your day, like, what do you do? She works at a power station, a nuclear power station. And it was fascinating to just hear like what she actually did in a day. Um, but yeah, I thought it'd be also fascinating. What do we do in a day? But it's hard because as illustrators, no two days are the same.

They're never the same. Also, I, I am quite addicted to watching, I don't know if you know Italian Batch, you probably don't, I've got a, do you know Katie? Yes, I do. Yes, I really love Italian Batch. He is a YouTuber who, who all, my 16 year old is mad about him, so she introduced me to him, and he watches, Other YouTube videos and picks them apart.

And one of his favorite things to do is pick apart, you know, those videos of a day in the life of a CEO. And they're like, up at dawn, uh, put on your muscle tee, get in the gym, 10 glasses of water, like that kind of high, like I, you know, that kind of optimize your life thing. And he watches those and laughs at them.

And we spend ages watching those and just like, He picks them apart. He'll find in the background, there's a clock that actually says it's half 11 in the morning when he says he's up at five and that kind of thing. Yeah, they're brilliant. Yeah, so my day is nothing like that. Are you going to tell us that you get up at four? 

I do get up at four very often, but that's because I think I'm probably menopausal. It wakes me up really early and I just go downstairs and I'm like, If I watch a bit of kind of boring YouTube, I fall back asleep and I don't want to stay in bed Otherwise, I'll wake Jerry up. Yeah, that's it. That's it.

That's a life stage I'm going through. But even before that you were Adrenaline Queen, weren't you? Yeah, when I used to be working like crazy I have actually always been an early riser. When I was a child, I would be the first person awake in the house I used to sit on my windowsill in my bedroom and watch outside because there's a stream run past the house So I've always been an early riser And when I was really busy with work, yeah, I would get up and work before everybody else in the house was awake.

What time would that be? Uh, sometimes five in the morning, just go in my work room, put my computer on, write a to do list, maybe start a newsletter or something, then go and wake Pi up and get her off to school and then start the day properly. And it was, I kind of enjoyed it, but I do think, I was in the end suffering with just too much.

I was just doing too much. So what time do you get up now? Yeah, like four or five, most days. I just get, it's my natural wake up time. And sometimes I just get out of bed and  just do nothing until Pi wakes up. Just mess about tidying up and then I'll watch some YouTube watch some Italian batch  Yeah, and uh  Sometimes I actually think oh, I'm actually too tired and I go back to sleep, but not very often That's a good morning routine I can get behind.

Yeah, floating around I don't want to jump the gun, but I'm getting anxiety about waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning What time do you go to bed? Or early, because I know I'm an early riser, naturally. By half nine, I am yawning and yawning and yawning. And Jerry and Payal want me to watch something on TV with them, and I can't follow the plot because I keep closing my eyes and I'm having micro sleeps.

So yeah, I'm, I'm in bed reading my book by half nine. And asleep by? And asleep by ten, half ten, always. Because I know, I just know I'm an early riser, so I need to get my sleep in early. Oh, I feel reassured by that four or five. So what happens next then? You got Pi up. Get Pi's out the door. And now Jerry tells me  he forces me to do Joe Wicks, which we've been doing since lockdown.

So we used to do that with Pi and then very quickly she got fed up of it. She actually wrote some big protest signs about why she shouldn't have to do it. There's probably like people who don't live in Britain. Explain Joe Wicks. He was a big phenomenon in lockdown. And he was like, at the time,  keeping children doing P.

E. while we were all in lockdown. And so he made these brilliant videos where your whole family would join in. And we heard about it and joined in and I just really like him because I hate, there's no way I'm going to the gym. The idea of that, I think I've been scarred by PE teachers at school. There is no way I'm doing that, but I definitely do need exercise.

I feel I need it emotionally. Like my mental health needs it. Um, so yeah, we just carried on. I've done it almost every day since the beginning of lockdown. Pie stopped doing it long time ago. But, um, yeah, every morning, I'm in awe. He says you've got to get your, your keep fit bottle of water at your side. I make a cup of tea because I'm a northerner.

I've got my keep fit cup of tea.  I usually just have my pajamas on. If I can be bothered, I'll put a bra on underneath. But sometimes I just have to hold my boobs because they jump about and at least I'm doing it. I mean, it's not cool. But I'm doing it every day. Honestly, I mean all that you exercise every morning is so disciplined.

Would Gerry and I argue if we, if we have a few days off, we end up  like grumpy with each other and we know it's lack of exercise. Yeah. So yeah, Joe Wicks, pies off to school, Joe Wicks. And now in my days of not being on that treadmill anymore then I'll open up my iPad. If there's an urgent email I answer it but if it's not urgent I don't.

I write a to do list. I keep my to do list nice and short because I used to have long ones and they used to stress me out too bad. So if I do one good job a day that's good. Um, and then, Pie comes in, uh, after she's finished school, have a little chat. And then Gerry and I take turns to cook, so I, either he does or I do.

The one who's not cooking carries on working.  And then we stop working. We eat really early in our house. What time? Like five, half five. Oh, that's like 1950s. I, that's so sweet. Yeah. I, I really want a nice long gap between my evening meal and my breakfast. Yeah. And so I want to, and I want to eat early and then have my breakfast later in the morning.

So we also, if we don't feed pie, the minute she's in the door, she just eat all the Kit Kats in the crisps in the cupboard, and then she doesn't want a tea. So we all, it suits us to eat early.  So if you say you're happy if you do one good job a day, what's that, to do a drawing or some roughs or is that?

Some rough, you know what, every day is different as well. At the moment I'm preparing to give a talk for Scooby. So tomorrow I will, I'll do that all day. Um, if I've got a deadline, it's different because I will actually get up early, put my computer on, write a list. Write a little sheet with each page I want to get done today so I know what I'm going to do. 

So yeah, my days are always really different. Some days I might get up desperately in the mood to write a sub stack. The mood just takes over and I think, well, that's, that'll be the job today. Then,  um, also we're doing up the house. So sometimes a DIY job might be the priority.  So much freedom. We're really lucky to be able to prioritize what's important to us on a particular time.

And if there's gaps between work and you can do life stuff. Another creativity, I feel like it is work. So if my mind. starts following an avenue of another bit of creativity, like make a banner or a flag or sew something. I just do that until the deadline feels much, much more pressing and then I come back to it. 

I definitely need the urgency to get anything done,  which is annoying, but then when it works, it's really effective.  It's just a world of pain all the time though, isn't it?  But it gets it done. What's your day like, Katie?  So I also wake up early. When I was pregnant, I woke up at four o'clock every morning.

That was really annoying, but I would just get up and float around. Recently, I've been managing to sleep till eight in the morning, which is luxurious. So I get up at eight.  Go grab small child from upstairs,  like get all her clothes and things, put them in a pile downstairs, get breakfast for her, get my breakfast, and then we sit and watch cartoons. 

And I'm late every single day, so don't take any of this as advice. So we watch cartoons for too long, and then I go, SHIT IT'S QUARTER TO NINE!  And then put her clothes on as fast as I can, try and like scrub pancake off her face and brush teeth. A hair, because it's like a bird's nest on the back of the head, um, persuade her to get in the car, come on, and like, try not to seem too stressed.

Yeah, like today, I got her to nursery, and then was like, okay, now I need to go home and sort myself out, because I hadn't done any of my own things. Um, so I went home and like, packed my lunch, and did all that stuff. But then, yeah, I go to the studio most days, and  It's tricky to say a normal day in the life because it is always really different, but if I'm in the studio and I've got stuff to do, I'll probably have some meetings, so I'll look at my calendar and see when they are, and then when the big chunks of time are that I can get other things done.

Look at my inbox,  I'm  It's really nice that I have people, there's two members of the team looking after my inbox. So there's just like things labeled for me to look at. Wow. So I'll be like, I'll look at them and even then I don't even reply sometimes because it's too boring. But sometimes if I'm like, Oh, that is really urgent.

I need to respond. I will,  or I'll tell somebody else how to respond, which feels naughty. But then, uh, carry on. I might have like edits to do on an illustration. There might be like tweaks from something I did live a couple of weeks ago. Or there might be, I don't know, preparations for a future event. Um,  but yeah, client calls, I try and batch them all on one or two afternoons a week.

That's a good idea. And I keep them short, they're like 20 minutes each. So then I'm just like, boosh, boosh, boosh, boosh, boosh, get through them all. And that means as well, because I don't know if you have this, if you, if you know there's a meeting at the end of the day, the rest of the day is just waiting for the meeting. 

She does her head in. Yeah, I completely get that. Sometimes there's just the feeling of waiting makes it feel as if you can't do anything else when actually you can. Yep, that's horrible. So I try to have at least one day, one working day a week where there's no meetings at all. And I work Monday to Wednesday officially, sometimes Thursdays, but never Fridays.

So those three days are like my concentrated work y days. Um, and I'm just about to shorten them because at the moment it's nine to five and I feel like that's too long and in the afternoon I don't get anything really done useful anyway. Um, but if I've, if I've got loads to do and I'm struggling, I do co working.

So there's an app called Groove that I really like, where you log on, it's on your phone and you literally just get on and you say, I'm going to work on this now. And then you say, see you later. And then in 50 minutes, five zero, you say, I did it or I didn't do it. And that is,  really helpful. And that sometimes I just be like, I need three grooves and I'll get everything done and then I can let myself off the hook.

It's just, I'm still amazed by the whole coworking thing because I hadn't done it before. And both of you had, and then we decided it would be good to offer it as part of Good Ship membership. And we do that now. And I did it for the first time. I was like, why does this work? Because you're not genuinely being accountable, but just that silence of knowing you're working, um, side by side digitally, virtually with a bunch of people who've got their own thing going on.

Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, we started doing Good Ship stuff every two weeks, haven't we?  So if you've done any of the courses, you're invited to Good Ship core working.  It's just an hour. Just like that, yeah. You say what you're going to work on, you work on it. You see how it went. How many grooves do you do a week, Katie?

Oh, it depends how much I've got to do, how much I'm struggling. I also find, it's probably too much information, but like, depending on where I am in my cycle. Yeah. Like the week before my period is a total write off. Can't do anything. I've given up trying. Even like ADHD medication doesn't work. I don't know.

I just can't do anything. Well, I can, but like painfully while crying. And I get one thing squeezed out for the week and be like, I can't do anymore. But then like,  ovulation week. I'm a machine could do everything just plow through the to do list, get it all done full of energy. I can socialize everything.

Um, that's amazing.  I should track it more because I always forget. I'm like, I'm a failure. Why can't I get anything done? And then I'm like, Oh, that was why. Okay. I'm fine.  That's mind blowing that it is that reliably bad.  And it's always, I'm like, why did I pick a project this week? Like the client's really wanting me to do this work and I just can't do it.

Um,  but yeah, once I get all through that, I go pick up the child, go home, have tea. It's literally pick her up, tea, bed, and then I just lie on the sofa and look at my phone all evening. So what time is that?  What time's your tea? Uh, half five. Quarter to six. Wow. Yeah. And then like a little bit of playing, half past six, we're upstairs, bath, bed, book, back booth, bath, book, bed. 

Loads of books. Totally different when you've got a literally running your clock for you. You have to be there for all that six and seven o'clock. I used to fall asleep while I was getting pie into bed. I'd read with, sit in her bed to read and then I'd wake up and it'd be eleven o'clock at night and I'd gone to sleep in her bed.

Do you do that? No, but I do like, as soon as I get downstairs. It is. I'm like, don't even speak to me. I'm so tired. I can't even like, I don't care what's on the telly. I'm not going to watch it. I just, I'm definitely somebody who cannot, cannot function very well after in the evening, but on a morning you can ask me anything.

I always say to Pi, don't ask me this in the evening. Ask me in the morning. Cause in the morning I'll be on it. I'll be able to fix it. I'll be able to do anything. Ask me in the evening. I'll just be grumpy about it. You're picking the bad time.  Same for chess. If I play chess at night time, I'll lose. But if we're playing With a toddler?

No.  I'll win every time.  Yeah, I know. Sadly, she can't play chess yet. But, with Cameron, if I play chess at night, I'll lose. But in the morning, I'll win. Because my brain is offline. I think from like,  3pm, I'm done.  Yeah, I always try to remember to save my emails for nearer the end of the day because the beginning of the day is when I'm creatively best.

So I shouldn't really be first thing in the morning looking at my emails. Yeah, wasting good energy. But I do because it's a distraction from starting.  But I always think to myself, I should do these at the end of the day, but I'm not disciplined enough to do it.  What about you, Tanya? You're the light hour of the three of us, aren't you?

Yes, whenever they wanted me to do something that required intelligence at 10am, I'd be like, Oh no, could we not do it at two? I'll be at my best. But I had this, there's two lives, so there was  the life in, I'm sorry, it sounds really poncy to say, the Hong Kong life, I used to work really long hours. I'd start at 10 and I'd finish about seven o'clock and I just got so used to that, I thought it was normal.

And a few people said it wasn't. I was like, Oh, okay, because it doesn't get dark till seven then. So I almost worked on a kind of light thing, but coming back to the UK is totally different. Especially, and I know it's been a while, but I still can't get used to winter nights and, you know, four o'clock that it's, it's dark.

And I feel like I could, should stop work. But. I think recently here, um, I get up really late. I wake up at about half past eight, don't want to get out of bed before then, and faff around till I get to my desk at about half past nine,  get the to do list out, which I am a living to do list even though I don't want to be, pick off the most important bits, Do loads of emails and then maybe what I can never really get into the flow tool  after two o'clock.

So two till six, I would work. And then if I've got a project, I'll still do that thing of working to tool  say lunchtime till seven o'clock at night. Graham cooks now. So I come down, eat my food, eat too much of it, fall into a coma on the sofa in front of the TV. And once I've had a few naps, then I'm up for a good old TV session till midnight or one in the morning, which accounts for the half past eight wake up.

So that's the routine I've always done, but I'm trying to go to bed at half 11. that's late stage adulting.  Yeah, I'm, I'm in bed by half 10, half 11. It's like, oh, it's so late.  So now whenever we have our like suppers together, I've actually learned to start them at six o'clock because it's too much strain for, for you two, if we're carousing until 10, 11 o'clock at night.

Yeah. I'm, I'm just yawning nonstop come 10 o'clock. There's no way.  So that's interesting because you always, you've often told us how late you eat your meal. And I think, how do you sleep when you've eaten your meal? But you're not going to bed till midnight or 1 o'clock. I've still got that gap, but I'm trying now to do all the sensible stuff like eat at six o'clock, not eat heavy meals.

You need that gap and try to do a bit of intermittent fasting. It's finally come to me, but I don't think I'll ever be able to get up at  seven. If I get up at seven, I feel weirdly tired and ill at the end of the day. It's just because it was that extra hour.  So when we talk about what do we do all day, I always feel ashamed because I'm a lazy riser. 

Just do lots of things like sign petitions for half an hour first thing in the morning, all those emails that you should really be actually clicking and subscribe on. If I calculated how much of my life was  signing online petitions, it'd be probably Really quite chunky.  You're doing good work though. 

Someone has to sign the petition.  And pass them on to other people who don't want to sign them. I sign them. Whenever you send me one, I sign them. I just think, well, Tanya told me to sign it, I better sign it. I don't know what it's for, but I better sign it. I'm like, I'll sign that later and then forget about it. 

So that's like,  there's no real solid thing in an illustrator's day, is there? No, there's really not. Like today we, none of us have done any of those things. Cause we got up, we sent a message. What time we're podcasting? We came around here, we had a good old chat at the table. Yeah.  Put the world to rights before we began podcasting.

So this is effectively the ASMR episode that doesn't impart any useful, actionable information. Just figure out that you're not alone in getting up late or faffing your way through the day and managing to get some work done somehow. Yeah, it's all good. We'd love to hear about your days in the life. Yeah.

I don't know why. Where do we want to hear about that? Somewhere.  Send it to us even on Instagram. We could do a day in the life post and ask people  to write.  And don't lie and don't fib and try and make it sound like you're really super. Oh, I really like to hear realistic, nitty gritty, embarrassing elements of people's daily routine.

They're the best bits.  No more of those horrible CEO day in the life things. They're just exhausting to watch. God, they're always men with perfect hair who think they're God's gift to women. Oh. End self optimizing now. Let's just get slack.   📍 Get slack. Half ass it, Katie. That's Katie's advice for life and I love it.

Half ass it. Yeah, definitely.  Have a good day. Bye. Bye.