becoming your best, one day at a time

As a corporate girlie, I know that managing your time outside of your 9-to-5 is a challenge—especially when you realize that most 9-to-5s are actually more like 7-to-6 once you add getting ready and commuting.

In this post, you’ll find a few tips that may help you become a successful corporate girlie who always seems to have time for everything—the one we see all over social media and quietly wish we could be. I’ll also share my personal experience navigating my social life, personal time, and work life during my first year of being a corporate baddie.

So grab your morning coffee or a cozy blanket, get comfortable, and enjoy✨☕️

I remember that by my second week at my first job, I already felt completely exhausted. I was complaining to a coworker of mine (now a friend) about how I felt like I didn’t have time—or the energy—to do anything after clocking out. Every day, I had an hour-long drive home, and the moment I arrived, I would collapse on my couch until it was time for dinner. That was my routine.

She told me she had felt the same way at first, but that around the three-month mark, she got used to it and started—successfully—managing her life outside of work. So I waited. I counted down the weeks until I hit that magical three-month milestone.

Now, I’m not calling her a liar… but I ain’t calling her a truther either, because six months in, I still felt exactly the same. If anything, I felt even more drained than before. I was barely resting while trying to make time for friends, myself, errands, house chores, fitness—everything. I was doing all the things and recovering from none of them.

It took me about a year to figure out a routine I could follow organically—one I didn’t have to force myself into.

What I’m trying to say is this: t took me well over a year to understand how to use the time I had left in my day in a way that actually helped me grow—to create a routine that prioritized investing in myself while still making space for the other aspects of my life.

During that year of trial and error, I followed countless Instagram accounts (@slowbecoming.blog) and saved endless Pinterest pins (@slowbecomingblog), looking for inspiration—ideas for what I could do during my “5-to-9” that would magically turn me into a better, more put-together version of myself.

But instead of feeling inspired, I just felt frustrated whenever I couldn’t follow these routines down to the smallest detail. Life got in the way. Responsibilities came up. And every time I fell short, I felt like I would never become that girl.

That’s when I realized something needed to change. My mindset needed to change.

WHAT WORKED FOR ME (AND MIGHT WORK FOR YOU)

Balance being flexible and strict with your time

When you’re trying to stick to a routine, one of two things usually happens. You either become too flexible—always finding excuses not to follow it—or too strict, to the point where moving something by ten minutes feels like a personal failure. Or you end up being a mix of both (like me).

Being flexible with your time is hard—especially when you’re trying to build discipline—but trust me, it helps more than you think.

Every day, choose a task, appointment, or commitment that—in the worst-case scenario—you can move to another day or time. Allowing yourself this tiny bit of flexibility helps you avoid feeling stressed or pressured when you’re running behind schedule for whatever reason.

Of course, the day will come when you can’t prolong it any further. Then you’ll have three options:

1. You can move another task or appointment to a different day (like you did with this one).
2. You can rush through the day and get it done (I only recommend this if there’s absolutely no other choice).
3. You can try your best to get everything done—and if you don’t manage to, be okay with leaving whatever you missed for the next day. And by “be okay,” I mean: be gentle with yourself.

I understand there are some tasks we have to do, and you should always prioritize those. But before taking on more than you know you can handle, ask yourself if there’s anything in your schedule you could move to another day—if needed.

Define and prioritize one area of your life that you’ll always make time for

Hear me out: choose one thing—one aspect of your life that’s so important to you that you commit to always making time for it. Only one. It could be fitness, reading, baking, spending time with loved ones, going out with friends, watching your favorite show—anything you like.

For me, that area is fitness. I’ve been doing Pilates for two years now, and the impact it’s had on both my mental and physical health has made it non-negotiable. I always make time for it at the end of my day. Sometimes I take two or three classes a week, and I only cancel them if—and this is a big if—there’s something I can only do at the same time as my class. This goes back to the previous point about being flexible with your routine.

Of course, in the “adult world,” there are responsibilities you can’t avoid and have to handle at specific times. For the ones I can postpone, I manage them like this: once I finish all of my classes for the month, I give myself a full week “break” to catch up on everything else I need to do. I won’t lie—those weeks are intense, but they’re just as important for my mental health as Pilates, because they help me tackle pending tasks that were giving me anxiety.

So I encourage you to start becoming your version of an “organized girly.” Ask yourself: What helps me get through a tough week? What gives me the energy to face another day? What chore or task can I move (and for how long) that would make me have a better day?

Feel free to answer these questions in the comments!—maybe you’ll help someone else figure their own routine out.

Don’t ignore your responsibilities!

It’s time to get serious. If you’re already an adult, I’m positive you have “real responsibilities” to handle. Do not—and I repeat, do not—ignore something urgent just because it doesn’t fit into your routine or clashes with a less important activity in your schedule.

You’ll need to decide whether something can be postponed or if it truly requires your immediate attention. Sometimes being an adult means adjusting your routine, your week, or even an entire month to take care of what needs to be done—and that’s okay. Sometimes we simply have to do things we don’t like.

Time is more valuable than money

Money comes and goes, but time—once it’s gone—is gone forever. You need to be more selfish with your time than with your money. Decide carefully who deserves it, and stop wasting it on people who don’t.

I’ll give you an example. Think of time as money you worked hard to earn. Let’s say you have ten thousand dollars—money you need to live. Two people ask you for it.

Person A has rarely shown up for you. They talk behind your back, create problems, and every time you spend even a few minutes with them, you leave feeling drained and upset.

Person B, on the other hand, has never intentionally harmed you. They’ve supported you, helped you when you needed it, and being around them makes you feel safe, appreciated, and loved.

Who would you give the money to? Remember: you need it, and once you give it away, you’re never getting it back. Start treating your time the same way. One choice feels like being robbed; the other feels like an investment. Be smart.

Put yourself first (you can’t pour from an empty cup)

I know—for some of you (me included), this is hard, especially if you’re responsible for others (or feel responsible for them). But you have to try.

There’s a saying that goes, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” You can’t save someone from drowning if you’re drowning too. There’s a limit to how much you can take. So you need to fill your cup first. And when you constantly put others first, your cup slowly empties—you start to feel overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted, and burned out—until there’s not a single drop left, and you crash.

That’s when we start neglecting our own needs. After a long day at work—maybe your boss was stressed, or you stayed late to finish something—you need a way to release that tension. Going home just to keep filling everyone else’s cup isn’t the answer.

Make space for yourself. Maybe it’s once a day, maybe once a week. Take a yoga class somewhere you can’t be reached for an hour. If that’s not possible—if you’re a parent or can’t leave home—try doing it at home. There are countless free videos online. And yoga is just an example. Maybe it’s drawing, going to a bar, or even cleaning and organizing your space. Whatever helps you breathe again.

This last tip ties everything together: treat yourself as a priority. Be selfish with your time, and remember that most of the time there’s something you can do another day. Still, sometimes we have to put on our “grown-up” shirt and do things we don’t want to do. And it sucks, but we have to find the time for it too.

It’s been over a year since I started my first job, and I won’t tell you it’s been easy. There have been some amazing days, some good days, some rough days, and some please-end-this-misery-now days. Some of you might read this and think I’m exaggerating—maybe your transition into corporate life was smoother (like my friend’s).

But this post is for those who struggled—and for those who are still adapting to a new lifestyle.

Don’t feel bad if it’s taking you longer to regain control of your life. You managed to adapt from being a toddler to kindergarten, from elementary school to middle school, from middle school to high school, and from high school to university—with bigger campuses and bigger challenges. You will adapt again.

Give yourself time. Be kind to yourself. Commit to becoming the person you want to be in real life. And if along the way you trip—cry a little, get up, wipe the dirt off your clothes, and keep going.

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Time is more valuable than money—but you can’t save time as you can save money. Learning how to manage it takes practice. Creating a routine for yourself and committing to follow it is an act of self-love. If this post made you reflect on how you’re spending yours, I’d love to hear about it. What’s your routine 5-to-9 routine? What’s one small change you’re trying to make after your 9-to-5? Was it hard adapting to the “real-world”? Let’s share in the comments and grow together.

slow becoming