Detail-oriented and focused, Patricia Peñalosa is a quality analyst during the day and a hands-on, arts-and-crafting mom at night. She’s on a mission to create beautiful, customized bracelets that fit her clients perfectly. Take a look at her typical day in today’s Day In The Life Of A Woman feature.

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I have always been fascinated with arts and crafts since high school. Fast forward 14 years, today, I am now a working mom who still loves doing anything related to arts and crafts.

During the day, I am a quality analyst. At night, I juggle between a breastfeeding mom and a bracelet maker. I make customized bracelets using gemstones, pearls, and charms that cater to individual personalities and styles. Sometimes, I also freelance in the events world. I am part of an events organizing team that specializes in weddings.

Here’s a preview of my typical day at work.

9:00 A.M. – I wake up. I know I wake up at a much later time than others but my son goes to school at 10:00 A.M. so we have an hour to prepare. Also, my work shift starts at 1:00 P.M.

9:30 A.M. – My son’s bath time. I make it a point that I bathe my son as it is our bonding time.

9:55 A.M. – I walk him to school. Luckily, my son’s school is just across the street and I am able to take him every single day.

10:05 A.M. – I walk back home and eat breakfast.

10:30 A.M. – I take a shower and prepare to go to work.

11:45 A.M. – I leave for work.

12:30 P.M. or 12:45 P.M. – I arrive at the office and start by having my lunch, haha. It’s because once I start working, I cannot lose momentum. I also call home once I get to the office to check if my son got home okay, how his school day went, and ask him about the things he did in school.

1:00 P.M. – My shift starts. I am a quality analyst for North America Dispute Resolution Team. The dispute resolution team works on the credit card chargebacks filed against our merchants. I am one of the four people who quality check the resolution they made to the case. I usually work on 28 to 30 cases a day.

9:45 P.M. – If the chargeback cases don’t have 100 pages or if the case isn’t too difficult or complex, I usually finish quality checking around this time. When I’m done, I either eat or chat with my colleagues to relax our minds, of course.

10:00 P.M. – If I don’t have meetings and if finish my cases on time, I am able to go home by this time. I usually catch a taxi going home.

10:35 P.M. – If there isn’t too much traffic, I get home by this time and eat a proper dinner.

11:00 P.M. – If my little one wakes up, we read a storybook or chat how his day went.

11:15 P.M. – I take a shower before going to bed.

12:00 A.M. – I breastfeed my son to sleep if he is still awake. If he’s already asleep, I work on my projects and check on orders for Breyslet PH.

2:00 A.M. – I call it a day.

What is the most challenging part of your job or day?

I believe the most challenging part of my job and the day is juggling everything I want to accomplish. I am fully committed to my office work and I love doing it. I love the challenges brought by thinking constantly on how we will defend our merchants against the chargebacks filed against them.

At the same time, I sometimes find myself daydreaming on the projects and orders that I need to finish. Most of my clients are also my officemates. They are very supportive indeed. Sometimes, when they tell me their orders, I get too excited to start work on it that I can’t concentrate. When this happens, I pause on the cases for a few minutes, browse through the internet for a peg or design, and then go back to the cases.

I also commit to fulfilling orders as soon as possible so I usually sleep so late. The worst was sleeping at 4:00 A.M. after I finished a couple of orders, and then waking up at 9:00 A.M.

I don’t like working on anything during the weekends as I make it a point that weekends are for my son and husband only. I also do not like seeing my son sad when he realizes that I am caught up with too much of everything, so I make it a point that I give him attention during the day. The most of our bonding time is when he takes a bath and when he is breastfeeding at night.

What do you like most about your job or business?

I love the challenges brought by my office job. But I also love creating something using my hands. I think I got it from my grandmother, my mom, and my aunts. My grandmother was a dressmaker. My mom is a doctor but she also loves doing anything with beads including bags, keychains, purses, and more. One of my aunts also made some beaded jewelry before but is into painting nowadays.

I have ever since been intrigued with jewelry making during my high school days. Every now and then, my mom and my aunts would buy beads and threads and I remember watching them and learning from them.

What I love most about my business, Breyslet PH, is that we customize the bracelet according to the client’s specifications, the size, the gemstones they want, the charms they want to add, and I share a part of myself by passionately putting together the look and design that they wanted.

I pushed through with the concept of customizing jewelry, most specifically bracelets, because I myself have a hard time trying to buy a bracelet that fits my wrist. I have a small wrist and I get frustrated sometimes when none of the bracelets available in the market fits me. Sometimes, whenever I find a bracelet that fits me, it’s designed for kids.

So I really chose to focus on the customized bracelets, Clients can send their specific wrist sizes. Whenever I send an order and hear that they loved how I put together everything they wanted and it fits them perfectly, I get a giddy feeling every single time.

What is your proven time management or productivity hack?

Define and outline the tasks you want to accomplish. Then squeeze in a time to breathe and define your motivation. I always start my day by writing down the things I need to get done within the day. If you’re familiar with the Eisenhower Urgent and Important Principle, then I guess what I do is somehow similar to it.

Also, don’t forget to breathe. Sometimes, when we get too caught up with too much work thinking of deadlines over deadlines, we tend to get too stressed, too agitated, then we become frustrated, and then we become unproductive. Always squeeze in a time to breathe and clear your mind.

I keep a silly photo of my son and husband with me always. When I get too frustrated in the office due to a difficult case, I close my eyes for a couple of seconds, look at the photo and can’t help but smile. And then I go back to work with fresh eyes. Whenever I get too frustrated with doing a bracelet because of my tired and shaking hands, I pause and look at the photo. Try to remember why you do the things you do. Use them as your breather, your inspiration, and your motivation. Going back to why you started in the first place will always keep you going.

 

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