This working mom believes in living a well-rounded life while still being devoted to her family and her career. In this piece, she shares how she’s able to accomplish this.

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Titled “Meet the Connected Women Team,” this series gives the readers a peek into what goes on in the days of the people behind Connected Women. From the everyday to inspirational, the series aims to highlight the team and their various backgrounds and talents, and share a bit of the diversity we experience every day. 

Frances Marie Camu is responsible for the Human Resource and Recruitment departments for Connected Women. She makes sure that the best match is done as much as possible, always. “I believe that we all have different areas of intelligence, and different jobs we’re good at,” she explains. “My beliefs greatly coincides with our values here at Connected Women, where we do not have just one standard we match people against. Clients have different needs, and we constantly endeavor to find their most suitable match from our wide pool of talented individuals.”

Here is how one of her days go:

4:30 AM-5 AM: I usually wake up around this time. This depends though if I slept early (I’m a night owl) –otherwise, I wake up around 5-ish.

5 AM–7 AM:  Clean up the house, prepare hot water for bathing kids later, and coffee. Start prepping for breakfast. I don’t do a lot of work related stuff before 8 AM if I can help it. I’m focused on work the rest of the day, so I ensure I spend a couple of hours in the morning doing mommy stuff.

7 AM–8 AM:  Exercise. I’m a big lady and working at home is a great excuse to not stay fit. I try blocking an hour a day at least to walk or do a couple of stretching routines.

8 AM–9 AM: Pre-work hour. I use this block of time to work on some remaining tasks from the day before, and to plan for the day ahead. I read emails, reply, write out my day plans, and create general task lists at this point. If anything urgent came up yesterday, or earlier in the day, I could catch up with it during this time.

9 AM–12 NN: Work proper. During the first half of the day, I try to spend time communicating with everyone at work. Exchange ideas and work on urgent and pending tasks. This is when I also “bother” people on what they owe me, work-wise.

This is when I also do my sourcing. Sourcing in the morning frees up my time in the afternoon to catch up on my HR tasks, and to work on process documentation and improvement.

12 NN-1 PM:  Lunch break. I really, really try to take my lunch at 12, but as is often the case, I usually get to take it after 1PM. Not anyone’s fault; I just get too taken with what I do that I forget to eat my lunch.

If it’s school season, my older son is usually at school, so his lunch would have already been prepped at this point. My younger son would have classes in the afternoon, so I’ll take this time to prep him for school, feed him (and at certain points, myself) lunch, and we head off to school.

If it’s summer, I make sure to reheat the food I prepped for them earlier in the day and make them take lunch ahead. Otherwise, we try to eat lunch together when my day isn’t too hectic.

1 PM-6 PM: HR work and process mapping—ideally. Some of my recruitment work sometimes overflows in the afternoon if the case is more urgent. Otherwise, I spend time creating processes and documentation. Process mapping is a great way to spend time, and to lose track of it. I get lost in a lot of scenarios in my head, and I barely notice how dark it’s gotten outside.

6 PM-7 PM: I resume my mommy duties at this time: clean the house, prep dinner, wash the dishes, put away toys, fold clothes, make sure my kids have their afternoon bath after a long day of frolicking. We also have dinner before seven, because my kids are quite picky with food, and when they eat it.

8 PM-10 PM: I do research on the most recent trends in the field of HR and Recruitment, study new and effective recruitment techniques, read articles on recruitment and what can help me augment my value as a staff member for CW. I believe in reading at least one new article of your choice per day. It doesn’t have to be related to what you do, just read something to broaden your knowledge, or to make you a better person in general.

I then spend the second hour of this time slot for myself. I either read for leisure (I’m a sucker for historical non-fiction books, historical fiction, horror and mystery novels), fangirl over my favorite Japanese boybands (ha!), or play an RPG on my phone till I fall asleep.

LinkedIn Is Important For Networking

Frances names some online programs she “can’t live without.” “Outlook,” she says. “I have this compulsive need to always read my emails and make sure I mark them read. Same goes for Gmail.” She also names Skype and Slack as two important programs for her. “Communication is a breeze in this era, so I always make sure I’m connected in case anyone needs to reach me,” she says.

LinkedIn is probably her favourite networking tool. “It’s one of the best tools you could ever have,” she says. “If you know how to use it. Make sure your profile is top-notch and up to date!” As someone who works in HR, Frances also says a large social media network is important. “ This is an indispensable tool for me,” she says. “Verifying applicant backgrounds, looking for recommendations, or posting openings you need immediate responses for–LinkedIn is one of my go-to tools for the job.”

Sharpen The Saw

Frances names Habit 7 from the popular book, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” as her favourite productivity hack. “It’s called Sharpen the Saw. You see, if you keep using the same saw over and over, without taking time in between to sharpen it, you’ll end up dulling your blade, and will take more time to finish your sawing. It’s more elaborate than that, but that’s essentially the habit in a nutshell.”

“You take time out of your daily grind to grow different aspects in your life,” she further explains. “It’s not something you can binge on, but you must do it in pockets and regular intervals. For example, I take time out every day to walk or read my favorite book. This allows me to rest my mind and allow a different aspect of my being to grow and mature. I also take time to meditate in a day, just to get away from the constant buzzing of my active mind. You also must remember, the point of sharpening the saw is not taking a break, but to grow the different aspects of your life in general.”