A normal weekday at this monastic community (I believe this varies widely across communities on Mt. Athos, as well as the different kellia of Lakkosketti) looks like this:
5-7:15 AM morning services: morning prayers through Ps 50, cannon for the saint of the day, communal Jesus Prayer until 6, Divine Liturgy, with a Koliva for the saint with prayers for living and departed inserted before 'Blessed be the name'. The Greek style Koliva is eaten at lunch.
7:15-8 hesychia of body and soul (while the one-night pilgrims are fed and sent on their way)
8-11ish work assignment (aka, one's obedience).
11ish-11:15ish Lunch (the main meal of the day), during which there is a reading.
(In practice, while lunch is "scheduled" for 11am, it starts anytime between 11 and 11:45, when the bell rings, but so far as I can tell no one seems to care about the variability.)
After lunch: "a little rest" (I take this to be more hesychia, but not so long--just a refocusing, so to speak).
11:30ish-2:30 one's obedience
2:30-5:00 discretionary time. (more hesychia? I'm not what the monastics do during this time.)
5-6:15 evening services: 9th hr, vespers, and the paraklesis (possibly along with a canon, eg, from the Pentecostarion) inserted immediately after the apostichia of vespers). On Friday night, a full memorial service follows the dismissal of Vespers so we end around 6:45.
For 20 or so minutes after Vespers is dinner.
After dinner until 9:30/10:00 or so: one's obedience. On the one hand, it's pretty relaxed after dinner; (some) monastics and pilgrims are hanging out chatting outside in the shadow of the mountain and looking down the valley to the Aegean, as the heat of the day gives way to a refreshingly cooler evening. On the other hand, others are back to their work sewing vestments, making incense, staffing the gift shop, working in the kitchen, etc.
The 5am and 5pm, "Blessed is our God ..." schedule is what I'm used to so I don't find this onerous at all, and the total morning service time is noticeably shorter than at HDM. My sense, and what I understand from conversations, is that their focus is on the Jesus Prayer and thus the slightly curtailed service schedule helps accommodate that. There is much more to be said about the services, but maybe some of that will occur in another post.
As for the work/obedience portions of the day, I work in the morning and afternoon, but not the evening block. In the afternoon "discretionary" (my word as I don't know what they call it) time and in the evening I hike up the ridge, read, try to follow their hesychia practice, write in my journal, write blog posts, battle with the Internet connection (which I now believe is resolved), visit the bookstore (always open in the evenings, and--best of all--just sit on a bench, looking at, listening to, and smelling this beautiful creation, which is what I'm doing now between finger taps on a 'phone'.
Saturday and Sunday, I'm told and am about to experience, are a little different. Saturday is the same as weekdays except there is no evening service and work stops at 7pm (presumably so we can be rested and prepared for Sunday). On Sunday the services start at 3am in the skete's Katholicon, I.e., with all the 13 Kellia's monastics gathered together. Apparently the services (Vigil and Liturgy) last until 9am. Sunday, of course, is not a workday, except for what is necessary for meals, greeting of pilgrims, etc.
