Do you ever get to the end of a day and wonder how on earth you did it? If so then congratulations, because I think it may be a sign of a much happier state of mind than if you find yourself asking why you even bothered.

Today has been one of those days for me. Up at 7am, I got my son ready for school and myself ready for a meeting, then dropped him at basketball with his lunch packed by 8am. I nipped home, put the finishing touches to a PR plan I’d promised to work on for a cause close to my heart and then headed to central London to present it at 10:30am. After lunch, I headed home, writing on the underground and the bus to ensure that I hit my deadlines for two freelance roles I’ve committed to this week, while editing some website copy that one of my brothers needed some last minute help with. I got home wrote another plan, caught up with a hundred messages, picked up my son and his friend from school at 3:30pm, and continued to work while I fed and watered them both.

I had a chat with a friend, then helped my son wash his hair in the bath before putting him to bed and talking with him about someone who had upset him in the playground today. Then I did a bit more work, while juicing some fruit that would otherwise have walked itself out of my kitchen by tomorrow, and then finally deciding that I’d carry on with the copywriting – that I could by now barely still see – when I get up early tomorrow.

I’ve done a lot but I’ve gone to bed happy in the knowledge that it was all worth it. I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do and I did what I did with pleasure. No wasted meetings, no undervalued work, nothing that left me feeling compromised, no regrets that my work is out of balance with life. Just a kind of gratitude and peace that perhaps has only become possible since I’ve started to feel more in control of the work I’ll commit to and the time I’ll spend doing it.

How good it feels to end the day looking back at one with a sense of contentment and looking forward to another without any trepidation.