Hayden Opie: “Get Enough Sleep and Get Out Of the City Sometime”

Our expat community thrives on connection, and here at Jingkids, we’re all about our readers, what they need and want in order to maximise their time here in Beijing. Every Monday, we’re going to feature a prominent member of our expat community and get to know them a little bit better.

Hayden Opie came to Beijing for six months in 2004 and is somehow still here. He has been more or less  fulltime at Beijing Hikers (www.beijinghikers.com) since 2007, and if you’ve ever been on a Beijing Hikers hike or trip you have probably chased him up a hill and/or received a lot of his emails. He is husband to “Big Boss” Huijie and father to Hayley, who turns 5 in November.

I’m just trying to keep up with *gestures broadly at everything*

Well, I get quite a bit of satisfaction when things are well-organised and going smoothly—work-wise, family-wise, whatever-wise. And I get a bit gloomy when things are messy, so there’s that for motivation, feeling satisfied instead of gloomy.

I stick to a couple of regular routines that help me stay on top of things. The main important things to do are roughly scheduled, and I get other stuff done around those. For example, today is the At Home With Hayley On A Weekend Routine, which means in between some housework and cooking and playing I can expect there will be a little gap when Hayley is playing or reading by herself and I’ll have some free time to do something i.e. finish answering these questions.

In general, getting out and about with Huijie and Hayley, getting enough sleep, having a bit of time every now and again for personal stuff – with those things taken care of it’s all good, I’m pretty easy.

(Getting out of the city to go hiking helps, too.)

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