No way out — 2 tips for working dads
Today I was talking with a colleague. Well, actually with my soon to be ex-boss. He is leaving the company soon, and since this is germany, there is often a very large gap between the day you give your notice, and the day you are actually finished. In his case I think over six months.
But that’s not really the point.
He’s had a lot of time off over the past month (burning up vacation, maybe some parental leave, I don’t know exactly), but today he was in the office. He told us:
“Being home is so exhausting. I don’t know how my wife does it. When nine o’clock rolls around, I’m practically passed out on the sofa.”
I feel his pain, for me it’s the same way.
When I’m home and have full responsibility for at least one of the children I tend to check my watch constantly.
9:45 — boah this day is dragging
11:15 — good, it’s almost lunch time
1:15 —sweet, it’s almost nap time
3:30 — come on, let’s go for a walk
5:00 — excellent, now we can start dinner.
7:00 — finally, just a few more minutes, an hour max, and I can have a few sweet minutes of freedom.
Every time I check my watch though, his guilty, sinking feeling shoots through my brain. I know I shouldn’t wish my time with my children away. They are here because we asked for them, we wished them here, we fucking made them on purpose with our bodies. Well, my wife did most of the work, I just helped at the beginning.
I have a thousand excuses for my thought patterns — maybe more:
· I don’t have any other time to do what I want
· Work takes up all of my other time
· There are so many unfinished projects around the house
But that’s all they are: shitty, lame excuses. I feel guilty because I know that I didn’t use the free time that I did have in a remotely productive way. I wasted it on facebook, or wordswithfriends, or whining about how I don’t have any time.
This problem has two solutions:
1. Use my actual free time more productively
2. Spice up the time with the children
1. Using my free time more productively
Reduce the amount of time I spend not only on facebook but also medium and quora. I tell myself that the time spent on the two latter platforms is time well spent. I’m always reading some great response to a question about starting a business or self improvement on quora; I steal hours from my employer secretly reading inspirational content from Nicolas Cole or Benjamin Hardy.
Here’s part of the problem: I’ve read nearly enough to write my own book. I don’t need to read just one more article, or go through one more list. Not that I know everything, not by a long shot. But I have a list one hundred yards long of tips and tricks and hacks that I should implement in order to start moving towards the next step.
Convert that wasted time to productive time by focusing on action and implementation rather than on learning more of the same stuff.
I could just as easily write on my work computer, or brainstorm ideas — and it would be worth more than another article or another question.
2. Spice up the time with the children
Sure, with the baby this is a bit harder. But with my oldest, I’m really slacking. We don’t spend nearly enough time outside running, biking, exploring or adventuring. He’s old enough now that I don’t just have to push him around in the stroller.
Adventure for him means entertainment for me.
We don’t need to walk the same routes every weekend. We don’t need to go to the same playground or the same bakery, or to only take 45 minutes.
We can leave the comfort of our suburban jungle for one more urban or someplace in the woods.
But staying home is much too easy. He has toys, and it’s nice and warm. Children (or at least mine) are mildly resistant to change. Wherever we are, that’s where he wants to stay. I don’t always have a good argument to the contrary, but I can brush up my lawyering skills.
Focusing on these two points should permit me to get more from all aspects of my life. The theory at least is simple, just sometimes the implementation is hard.
