A Day in the Life of a Language Consultant

​I absolutely love reading these types of posts so I thought I'd share what a typical day in the life of a full time language consultant looks like. I speak 7 languages fluently and on any given morning, I usually speak at least 5 by 8:00 AM. I randomly picked a date so here is what I did on Wednesday, April 19th, 2017:

6:00 AM: Wake up in my insanely comfortable Casper mattress. It is hard to get out of bed but I am so happy when I get to lie down in it again at the end of the day! I seriously cannot get enough of my bed. I have the sheets, pillows, and just ordered the duvet. My husband gets ready for work and because I work from home, I get to stay in bed and begin my day dealing with my morning phone tasks. I quickly check my texts and emails for anything urgent and then move on to posting my Instagram posts for the day. It seems like a lot of people go on Instagram as soon as they wake up because I find if I post before 7:00 AM, I get to interact with a lot more people! So, I like to live post depending on how I'm feeling that day to both of my accounts Philly Love List and Speak at Home Tonight. Instagram is my absolute favorite form of social media!

7:00 AM: Next up, I brush teeth, drink water, get dressed in something comfy, go outside for a quick walk around the block to "walk to work" since I actually work from home. Drink green smoothie that T-Slav blended before he left for work. 

7:30 AM: As a consultant, I am a contractor and work with different corporations around the world providing global services. This means that I split my day up between different projects. Today, I'm working on a data migration project for the Global Subsidiary Management division of a large corporation. This includes a lot of information in a lot of different languages and when I come across a language I don't speak, like Chinese, I use Google Translate.

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Skype - German Lesson 

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Skype - Croatian Lesson

My students will recognize the world map behind me :)

11:00 - 12:00 PM: Make and eat lunch. Today I had some leftovers from Farmer's Kitchen (a kale salad and pulled Apricot pork) so I decided to sautée it all together and eat it warm. It was delish! I call my Mom while I'm at it and respond to texts. I use iMessaging, What's App, and Viber so I have three places to check messages. My Croatian group texts are on Viber and my German ones are on What's App and there are Polish and English (and sometimes a few other languages) going on in my iMessages.

12:00 PM - 12:30 PM: FaceTime with my sister, nephew, and niece. Being in the same time zone means I know exactly when naptime is. I then check Instagram/Facebook/Snapchat, lay out on my deck, and peek in on our greenhouse.

​12:30 PM - 2:00 PM: Work on corporate project on my laptop inside.

2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: I work on small tasks for my website. I added Google translate to the bottom of each page so you can now read in any language! Tomislav and I contribute to better Croatian translations when we can because right now it's not the best. I check in on a few freelance projects I have and respond to emails.

3:00 PM - 4:30 PM: Lesson planning and creating materials for my students to use. I create digital flashcards for my students using the words we used during our lesson so they can continue to practice them in their free time.

4:30 PM - 5:00 PM: Make dinner for hubby. Tonight we're having a "good girl/bad girl" salad that I made up with the last bits of what's in our fridge #eatathometonight :) I made it with spinach, bacon, asparagus (fried in the bacon fat), sun dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and shaved Parmesan with an aged balsamic vinaigrette. 

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Hubby is home from work! We eat dinner together on our deck and check on our greenhouse. My husband is from Croatia and grew up gardening so our urban garden is a way for us to keep in touch with his family roots.

6:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Help Tomislav edit his essays for his MBA application.

7:00 PM: Tomislav and I go visit my Godmother at the hospital. Living abroad definitely taught me to be more direct and honest in every conversation. This is real life and unfortunately, things aren't always bright and rosy.

9:00 PM - 10:00 pm: Watch cooking Instagram stories in my Casper mattress (I know, I'm obsessed ) while T-Slav works because he has a big presentation to prepare for.

10:00 PM: Bed :)
​
Every day is a little bit different but for the most part I can create my own schedule. Most of my lessons are on Skype so I can be pretty location independent as long as I have a good Internet source.

Let me know what you think! If you work from home, what does your schedule look like? Do you find it distracting to switch between different tasks and activities? I would love to know!
​