I always like to qualifiy that I'm not qualified to answer these questions (certainly not as qualified as the many members who are personally familiar with people in this world.) But through my readings I've gathered as reasonable outline (as I see it). Their life revolves around their work like everybody else. Their work involves illegal activity so it skews the process. As others have said there's a lot of scheming, a lot of surviellence avaided meetings with other people in that world, researching plots and angles. A lot of the day is spent trying to figure out what's up on the street either by hanging out with other guys in your crew, shaping up with the boss, trying to make contacts in various industries to help you with your business.

I think the process kind of guys where the young guys who aren't known to law enforcement just hang around and play cards and scheme; then once you're hot enough to be on the police radar, most of the day is spent trying to escape survellience so you can then do your job. Someone brought up the sopranos being ridiculous and that's a good point because it condenses a lot of things. Anytime Tony has a sit down or a meeting with his captains or with new york its likely they have to spend a good chunk of time ditching tails then driving to some random hidden spot out of the way to talk for 5 minutes then repeating the process over again. Or if you're on a criminal job or are contracted to hit someone, there's a lot of time where you're just waiting and watching for the right opportuninites. You might spend 2 weeks tailing a guy just to see if there's an opportunity to whack him. It's not like you get a contract then just show up at his house