5:30 a.m. The alarm on my watch goes off, and I gear up for the day's workout. Resistance training on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; cardio on Tuesday, Thursday and on weekends. This is also the time I use to reflect on the day's priorities.
6:30 a.m. Breakfast on those days that don't start with a breakfast meeting. If it's just me, I catch up on news and personal communication, which doesn't always aid digestion! And this is about as far as "routine" survives most days.
7:30 a.m. I meet a lot of folks for breakfast or coffee, adding a lot of opportunity to my schedule and getting me into the workday early. Always coffee; lots of coffee.
8:30 a.m. When we lived in far north Fort Worth, getting to United Way of Tarrant County meant completing a 40-minute commute, but now that we live downtown, it takes me about six minutes to get to the office. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I meet with United Way of Tarrant County's executive team. Monday's meeting is structured and includes the entire leadership team (anyone who manages people) once a month. The other meetings are shorter and less formal – designed to keep all our execs singing from the same hymnal. My morning is almost always packed with scheduled one-on-one meetings with teammates, donors, partners or other stakeholders. My colleague Beverly is a master time juggler.
11:30 a.m. Lunchtime is different just about every day. I try never to eat lunch alone, leveraging this opportunity to meet and learn. I'm finishing up an effort to meet one-on-one with each of my United Way board members to explore their experience and potential. I wind up at the Fort Worth Club a lot, but I also try to frequent as many of Tarrant County's great eating establishments as possible (thanks, Beverly!). My wife is convinced I've eaten lunch at every venue in Fort Worth.
1 p.m. Afternoons are like the mornings, except they're typically off-site. The dashboard of my truck feels more like my office than my desk does most days!
5 p.m. I like to wrap up my office time by now, but it's often just a transition to an evening event of some kind – reception, gala, cocktails with someone I've been trying to meet with, but the only time we can make happen is at the end of the work day. OK, that sounded like an excuse for cocktails…maybe.
6 p.m. When I don't have an event, I look forward to evenings at home with Barbara. We cook at home a lot, but since moving downtown, we sometimes walk to dinner or take our yellow lab, Trey, out afterward. The Trinity Trail is a right turn out our front door, and Sundance Square is a left! We love it!
8 p.m. If I'm not writing something or taking care of home admin stuff, we'll binge a series on Amazon or Netflix. I get bored with most of them after season 3, though.
11 p.m.-ish Crash.
