The Day I Needed Today
A few years ago, my executive coach asked me to describe my perfect day.
I mapped it out in surprising detail. I would wake up, stretch and take a quick walk. Have a cup of coffee and plan my day. Walk my kids to school. Do meaningful work. Eat a good lunch. Find time to move again in the afternoon. Make dinner and spend the evening with my family.
I had not looked at that exercise in years.
Then this morning, as I walked home with our dog after taking my youngest daughter to school, I had a strange realization.
This is it.
Not the perfect day. Not a day I need to recreate every Friday. But somehow, this was exactly the day I needed today.
After a Season of Keeping Up
Summer is wonderful in our family, but it is disruptive. Camps change from week to week. Vacations interrupt routines. Bedtimes shift. Transportation changes. Every week seems to require a slightly different plan.
I felt like I spent much of this summer keeping up.
Then came back-to-school. Last week and the early part of this week were about rebuilding routines, managing logistics, getting everyone where they needed to be, and navigating some of the emotions that naturally come with a new school year.
By today, I did not need another plan for everyone else.
I needed some space.
My morning started with ten extra minutes in bed and my third grader coming in to snuggle. I walked her to school with the dog, which gave me a walk before the workday had even started. I came home, got organized, and made a list of what I wanted to accomplish across both my work and Chief of Mom Life. Then I walked my middle schooler to school and came home to a cup of coffee.
It was on that first walk home that I felt it: the same kind of exhale I have experienced at a few other defining moments in my life.
I had space to think.
Knowing What You Need Is Clarity
What strikes me now about the coaching exercise is that its value was not in designing a perfect schedule.
It made me articulate what a good day looked and felt like for me.
When I recently pulled out what I had written years ago, the details were remarkably familiar: movement, time to plan, walking my kids to school, meaningful work, good food, family time, and connection. They also reflected many of the values I had identified through that same coaching work: leadership, relationships, contribution, optimism, and versatility.
Today was not identical to the day I mapped out. My life is not identical either.
But the ingredients were still there.
That clarity mattered because once I recognized what I needed from today, I could be intentional about protecting it.
Creating Space to Get Ahead
The rest of the day was not particularly glamorous.
I did laundry intermittently. I had scheduled someone to clean our rugs and sofas, and they now look better than they have in a very long time. I ran four errands that had been hanging over my head. I stopped for a healthy lunch. My third grader walked home from school by herself for the first time, and I got to see another little marker of her growing independence.
And I worked. A lot.
I had uninterrupted stretches of time to think and make progress across several different fronts. By late afternoon, I looked at the list I had made that morning and was amazed by how much I had moved forward.
That was part of what I needed too.
There is a difference between keeping up and getting ahead. Keeping up is responding to what needs you next. Getting ahead creates room to think about what is coming, what matters, and where your attention will have the greatest impact.
For me, today created some of that room.
This Is Not About a Free Friday
I recognize the flexibility required to have a day like this. Not every Mom can work from home on a Friday, control large portions of her schedule, walk her children to school, or create hours of uninterrupted time. There is privilege in being able to do that, and I do not take it for granted.
But I also do not think the lesson is that we all need to create my version of today.
Your day might look completely different. Mine will too, depending on the season.
The more useful question is: What do I need from this day, this week, or this season to lead my life well?
Maybe it is an uninterrupted hour to think. Maybe it is getting ahead on something that has been weighing on you. Maybe it is movement, connection, rest, or time alone. Maybe it is saying no to something so you can create space for something else.
Knowing what you need does not guarantee that you can create it. But without that clarity, it is much harder to recognize the opportunities when you can.
The Day I Needed Today
One of the things I have learned through leadership work is that being proactive is not simply about getting more done. It is about understanding the work that only you can do, where your time has the greatest impact, and what you need in order to do that work well.
I think the same is true in Mom Life.
Today gave me time to work, but it also gave me room to notice. I watched one daughter take another small step toward independence. I started my morning walking with both of my girls. I took care of things at home that had been lingering. I moved important work forward. And tonight, I will meet a couple of friends for a cocktail before coming home for pizza, family time, and possibly a high school football game if my middle schooler gets her way.
None of those things individually makes a perfect day. Together, they made today feel like mine.
Years ago, I wrote down what I thought an ideal day might look like. Today, without trying to recreate it, I recognized pieces of it in the life I am actually living.
That felt less like achieving some vision of a perfect day and more like taking a breath long enough to notice what I had been building.
A Few Minutes For You
If you want to try this for yourself, it does not require a coach or a perfect afternoon.
Take a few minutes and write down what your ideal day would look like, start to finish. Not the day you think you should want, but the one that would actually leave you feeling like yourself.
Then, over the next few weeks, pay attention. You do not need to recreate that day exactly. You just need to notice when a piece of it shows up: a walk, an uninterrupted hour, dinner with people you love. Naming it in advance makes it easier to recognize and appreciate when it arrives.
And today, that was exactly what I needed.
This post is part of an ongoing exploration of the idea that motherhood is leadership. To read the essay that started this work, see Motherhood Is Leadership.
Read the essay →