**[Download here.](http://traffic.libsyn.com/shawntoday/shawntoday-2015-03-04-productivity-and-parenting.mp3)** (20:23)
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Pedro asks:
> How do you maintain your productivity levels while parenting two kids? I have a 10-month-old baby at home and I find it cumbersome to be productive when he is sick, or when he doesn’t sleep, or when you simply can’t find the time to do everything you want because of the day-to-day parenting responsibilities. How do you accomplish this? Where’s the threshold between being a great parent to your kids and being 100% available to your day job?
Once we become parents, this becomes one of the questions of our lives. Kids can be all consuming — especially in their younger years. And with two toddler boys running around upstairs, sometimes I don’t know how I accomplish anything at all.
One of the primary motivations behind me quitting my day job to work from home was that my wife and I wanted to have kids. And I wanted to be a very active and engaged dad. Having a thriving relationship with my two boys, my wife, and my friends and family is so important to me.
Yes, working from home is awesome. But it’s also terrible. It’s full of perks: no rent, no commute, three homemade meals a day, etc. But it’s also filled with a billion distractions and noises.
We often hear there term “work/life balance”. But I don’t think it’s about balance: equal parts work and non-work. But about boundaries. Giving each area the focus and attention it deserves.
I can’t remember where I stole this phrase from, but I very much like the idea of “work/life boundaries” rather than “work/life balance”. Because it’s *all* life, isn’t it?
A few of the boundaries I try to keep to help me be attentive and productive in my work, while also present and thriving in my personal relationships.
* For one, there’s no way that I’d be able to do anything if my wife wasn’t at home with the boys. And so being able to have a normalish working schedule is a life saver.
If I were filling out a test, I’d say that I consider myself to be more spontaneous than structured. But I’ve found that without some consistency, I limit the quality and quantity of the work I do. It’s more important for me to do meaningful work, and so that means setting up some structure and routine to my day.
* I have 4 hours at the start of every day (7:30 – 11:30 am) for my most important work. I know I will (probably) get those 4 hours every day, and that’s the time I am militant about guarding because it’s when I tackle my most important tasks / projects / etc.
Speaking of which, it’s also helpful to define what success looks like each day. For me, I write down my two or three “Most Important Tasks” the night before. These are the things which I most want or need to do in order to make progress on my work. There have been days where I was lucky to get just one of my Most Important Tasks done for the day before something totally interrupted. And that’s okay. Heck, sometimes, I don’t get to any of them. But that’s because something more important came up, and I’m okay with that.
* After my four hour focus work time, at 11:30 I take a lunch break to go upstairs. We have lunch as a family. Then I’ll make some tea and come back downstairs to work some more in the afternoon. For me this usually looks like admin, reading, researching, communicating with my team, etc. A few days of the week my afternoon schedule is different. Such as Wednesdays, where I meet a friend for lunch and then I come home and take over for my wife so she can go serve at our local church. And Fridays are a half-day for me, so after my four hours in the morning I spend the rest of the day with the family. We usually take the boys out to eat or run errands as a family or something.
* Another thing that helps with being productive and a parent is to have a dedicated work space. I know people who work from home, but the work from their kitchen counter. Sometimes you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do, but I cannot imagine a work environment like that.
I try very hard to only do work at my desk. And when I am done working, I will take the last 5-10 minutes to unwind. I will write in my Day One about the tasks I got accomplished for the day (such as total words written, any important milestones I reached), and I’ll write about what business and personal things are still on my mind and how I’m feeling overall. It’s a great way to “flush out” the remainders of the day and clear my mind from work.
Then I shut out all open apps on my Mac. It’s my way of “leaving the office and locking the door for the night”. It provides a sense of closure and finality to my day. As if leaving my apps open keeps them connected to my brain.
* And then when I’m upstairs with my kids, the aim is to be attentive and active. For my kids, their love language is attention, enthusiasm, and instruction. So if I can give them my full attention, show them how glad I am to be with them, and teach them a new way to put their train tracks together then I basically am a shoo-in for Dad of the Year. And all it takes to give them my full attention is usually something as simple as leaving my phone somewhere else, so I have nothing to distract me.
* As for how to deal with sick kids, rough nights of sleep, and all that comes with having little ones — you just take it one day at a time.
Here is something else I have to remind myself of:
It is okay for a day or two of work to be thrown out the window because of a sick or needy child.
Sure, productivity can be measured in the little things we do each day. We need these little steps of progress to contribute to the bigger, long-term goals. But that doesn’t mean a day or two where we didn’t get those little things done means we’re now unproductive people.
The most important thing will always be family. My kids, my wife — they will always come first. And sometimes I just need to remind myself of the big picture that it’s okay to have a semi-unproductive *work* day in exchange for a productive *family* day. And by “productive” I mean doing the important work that needs to be done. Which, if you’ve got a sick kid, the most important work is to care for that child.
My overall productivity — the big picture of my overall body of work — isn’t measured in days, it’s measured in months if not years. And the quality of my family life and relationships will feed the quality of creative work I do. The two are deeply intertwined.
So like I said, it’s not so much a system or a “balance” so to say, as much as it boundaries. I have my work hours and I try to get all I can get done in that time. And then I have my family time and I try to not pull my phone out when I’m with my kids.
Of course, it’s easier said than done, that’s for sure.