Day in the life with Caitland Conley
A well-caffeinated, creative day in Brooklyn.
Welcome back to Day in the Life, where we follow creatives through the rhythms of their days. From the rituals that keep them grounded to the work that keeps them inspired, we want to see it all.
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Next up: Caitland Conley.
Caitland is a writer based in Brooklyn. She’s a senior copywriter in the tech sphere, a freelance writer, and moonlights as a teacher’s assistant for ilovecreatives’ Creative Copywriter Course. Caitland has worked for brands like Vimeo, ilovecreatives, Keys Soulcare, and Oevra — to name a few. She is passionate about her community garden, food justice, and still-life paintings. Find infrequent updates via personal day, a Substack of loosely tied ideas around labor and identity.
Caitland’s day in the Life:
8:30 am: I wake up, make my bed, and beeline for the espresso machine, which is my most cherished possession. (It was my birthday present to myself a few years ago. I thank my past self all the time for this purchase, because I paid $6.00 for a drip coffee off Wall Street recently. Never again).
In the spring, I like to make iced Americanos at home. I’m not much of a morning person, though trying to be. In a perfect writerly world, I’d spend a bit of time reading or writing and ease into my day. In reality? I tend to check emails and jump straight into working.
9:00am: Most mornings I putz around the apartment and inspect my favorite houseplants. Ever since I found out that simulating the feeling of wind helps plants grow stronger, I shake the trunks of my fiddle leaf figs daily.
9:15 AM: I wash my face with the Keys Soulcare Golden Cleanser, which smells soooooo good. I work with their agency partner on editorial for the brand, and they sent me a few products in the mail over the fall. That was a cool moment.
Then I douse my bangs in water in an attempt to look presentable for my upcoming Zoom call. I spray my prayer plant while I’m at it, so she can feel pretty, too. 🥰
9:30–9:45 AM: At my day job, I dial into my team’s stand up meeting, where we give timely updates on all our projects. We’re refining copy at the moment for various product launches, and in the early stages of refreshing our brand voice and identity.
10 AM–12 PM: A few meetings and brass tacks work. 10am–2pm is my brain’s best window for working without getting distracted. (For some reason, this reminds me of Ursula Le Guin’s much-memed and Substack re-stacked daily schedule. Hers is much better.)
At noon I re-up on coffee and start an SEO analysis for a project at work. This was my bread-and-butter at a previous role, so it feels nice to flex back into that skill.
1–2 PM: I hop into the ilovecreatives’ Discord for my first ever “Super Productive Time,” which is basically digital coworking that gets me points (a.k.a. cookies 🍪) as a new student of the Video Creator Course with Rachel Nguyen. Video storytelling is one of my growth areas at work, so I’m excited to take this course.
BTS of the Video Creator Course
Though I’m just getting started, one of the first videos I want to make is a short piece about my community garden. I gotta crack the angle, though.
2–2:30 PM: Time for a break. I make a late lunch.
2:30–3:30 PM: I jump on a meeting or two and email my accountant back about filing my taxes. The sun is shining and I’m brimming with envy for anyone who is outside right now.
3:30–5 PM-ish: With my last meeting of the day done, I have time for some writing and bang out a draft of the landing page I was working on in the AM.
I also give my portfolio a spring cleaning. It’s custom coded, so I play around with the CSS until it does roughly what I need it to do. Unfortunately, I ask for ChatGPT for advice and it’s surprisingly helpful. (Seriously though, DM me if anything looks bad lol.)
5:30–7:30 PM: I’m out the door for a long, aimless walk without a destination. (Well, I decide to buy groceries, but after a busy day, I’m tired of planning my next move.)
I put on an NTS playlist and let it be the soundtrack to my walk. It’s the kind of early evening in March where people are out and about, photosynthesizing on park benches along Eastern Parkway.
Along the way I think about a fiction project I’m working on, a conversation between two characters. After a while I stop in a wine bar to jot down my ideas. Lately my writing practice looks more and more like this — a lot of thinking about writing, a quick burst of actual writing.
8 PM–ish: I have a glass of chilled red, scribble in my notebook for a while, and close out so I can get to the grocery store before it closes.
10:00 PM: Back home! A quick dinner had, my step goal reached, and a nighttime skincare routine waits for me on the nightstand. In bed by 11pm. Solid day.
(Thanks for reading and shoutout to The Subtext for having me!! 😊)